Top 80 Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “All publicity is good publicity.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

2. “Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

3. “La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

4. “When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

5. “How characteristic of your perverse heart that longs only for what happens to be out of reach.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

6. “Don’t you remember that love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature?”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

7. “Oh yes, certainly her daughter must be seduced. But that will not be enough: she must be ruined too.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

8. “Fools are here below for our minor pleasures.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

9. “I assure you that the world is not so amusing as we imagined.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

10. “Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The criminal has his virtues, just as the honest man has his weaknesses.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

11. “Truth to tell, the longer I live, the more I’m tempted to think that the only moderately worthwhile people in the world are you and I.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

12. “A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness she gives.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

13. “One gets bored of everything, my Angel, it’s a law of nature; it’s not my fault.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

14. “I see you are already as timid as a slave: you might as well be in love.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

15. “Marquise de Merteuil: I’ve distilled every thing to one single principle: win or die.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

16. “The arrows of love, like Achilles’ sword, carry with them the remedy for the wounds they cause.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

17. “You accuse her of being ill-dressed. I agree. Clothes don’t become her. Everything that hides her, disfigures. It is in the freedom of dishabille that she is truly ravishing.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

18. “Love, hatred, you have only to choose; they all sleep under the same roof; you can double your existence, caress with one hand and strike with the other.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

19. “Moreover it is easier, in the informality of conversation, to achieve that excitement and incoherence which is the true eloquence of love.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

20. “I can see that you’re in love, but only in a very narrow sense. It’s the love of someone that finds charms and qualities in a woman that she doesn’t actually have, who puts her in a class apart with every one else in second place, and who stays attached to her even while he’s abusing her.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

21. “Never to my mind had she looked more beautiful. Inevitably so. A woman reaches the height of her beauty – and only at this time can she inspire that intoxication of the soul which is so often talked of and so rarely experienced – when we are sure of her love, but not of her favours.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

22. “It is very easy for you to say what I ought to do, there is nothing to prevent you; but if you had felt how much it hurts to see the grief of a person one loves, how his joy becomes yours, and how difficult it is to say No when you want to say Yes, you would not be surprised at anything; I felt it myself, I felt it very keenly, I do not yet understand it.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

23. “I had to flatter them the whole evening to appease them; for old women must not be angered – they make young women’s reputations.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

24. “One should only permit excess with those one intends to leave soon.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

25. “Indeed, if first loves appear in general more virtuous and, as they say, more chaste; if they are at least slower in their progress; it is not, as people think, from delicacy or timidity, but because the heart, surprised by an unknown sentiment, hesitates as it were at every step to enjoy the charm it feels, and because this charm is so powerful upon a fresh heart that it forgets every other pleasure.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

26. “Men can only judge thoughts by actions; and none of them, having lost the esteem of others, has the right to complain of the necessary mistrust, which makes that loss so difficult to repair.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

27. “It was there, in particular, that I confirmed the truth that love, which we cry up as the source of our pleasures, is nothing more than an excuse for them.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

28. “You must observe, when you write to any one, it is for them, and not for yourself: you must endeavour, then, to write to please them, and not give them your thoughts.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

29. “A man enjoys the pleasure he feels, a woman the pleasure she bestows.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

30. “I have looked into my own heart, I have studied in it the heart of others.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

31. “What I blame myself for most, and what, nevertheless, I must tell you about, is that I am afraid I did not defend myself as well as I was able. I don’t know how that happened. I most certainly am not in love with Monsieur de Valmont, quite the contrary: yet there were moments when it was as if I were.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

32. “You may conquer her love of God: you will never overcome her fear of the devil.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

33. “I willingly allow that money does not guarantee happiness; but it must also be allowed that it makes happiness a great deal easier to achieve.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

34. “It has become necessary for me to have this woman, so as to save myself from the ridicule of being in love with her: for to what lengths will a man not be driven by thwarted desire?”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

35. “Cast between the extremes of happiness and misfortune, uncertainty is a cruel torment.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

36. “You know better than I, Monsieur,′ said he, ’that to lie with a girl is only to make her do what pleases her; there is often a great distance between that and making her do what we want.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

37. “Your happiness is my concern, and you may be certain that in it I shall find my own.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

38. “Indeed, if to be in love is not to be able to live without possessing that person one desires, to sacrifice to her one’s time, one’s pleasures, one’s life, then I am really in love.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

39. “Either you have a rival or you don’t. If you have one, you must please in order to be preferred to him, and if you don’t you must still please-in order to avoid having one.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

40. “Once certain of arriving, why hurry on the journey so fast?”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

41. “Believe me, Vicomte, people rarely acquire the qualities they can dispense with.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

42. “One must not permit oneself excesses, except with persons whom one wishes soon to leave.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

43. “To punish you for your suspicions, I shall leave you to live with them: I shan’t tell you anything at all.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

44. “Have you forgotten that love, like medicine, is simply the art of aiding nature?”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

45. “Now I mention neglect, you resemble those who send regularly to inquire of the state of health of their sick friends, and who never concern themselves about the answer.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

46. “Certainly she must surrender but she must offer resistance; an opponent too weak to win but not too weak to put up a struggle.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

47. “Contrary to conventional wisdom, opportunity always knocks more than once whereas a false step can never be retraced.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

48. “I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

49. “I need only to be shown my mistakes and I never rest until I have retrieved them.”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

50. “Who can wish for happiness that is bought at the price of reason, whose fleeting pleasures are at least followed by regret, if not remorse?”

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos