The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade Quotes

Jean-Paul Marat Don't be deceived when our Revolution has been finally stamped out, and they tell you that things are better now. Even if there's no poverty to be seen, because the poverty's been hidden. Even if you've got more wages and can afford to buy more of these new and useless goods. And even if it seemed to you that you'd never had so much - that is only the slogan of those who have that much more than you. Don't be taken in when they pat you paternally on the shoulder and tell you there's no more inequality worth speaking of, no more reason for fighting. If you believe them, they will be completely in charge in their shining homes and granite banks, from which they rob the people of the world under the pretense of bringing them freedom. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them, they will send you out to protect their wealth, in war - whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can, with the flick of a finger, tear a million of you to pieces.

Singers We've got nothing, always had nothing/Nothing but holes and millions of them/Living in holes/Dying in holes/Holes in our bellies/And holes in our clothes.

Jacques Rue Who controls the markets? Who locks up the granaries? Who got the loot from the palaces? Who sits tight on the estates that were going to be divided between the poor?

A Mad Animal Who keeps us prisoner?

Patient #1 Who locks us in?

Patient #2 We're all normal and we want our freedom!

Marquis de Sade I've twisted and turned them every way, and can see no ending to our play.

Singers We've got new generals, our leaders are new/They sit and they argue and all that they do/Is sell their own colleagues/And ride upon their backs/Or jail them, or break them/Or give them all the ax/Screaming in language that no one understands/Of the rights that we grab with our own bleeding hands/When we wiped out the bosses/And stormed down the wall/Of the prison they told us would outlast us all!

Marquis de Sade Man has given a false importance to death. Any animal, man or plant that dies adds to Nature's compost heap, becomes the manure without which nothing could grow, nothing could be created. Death is simply part of the process. Every death, even the cruelest death, drowns in the total indifference of Nature. Nature would watch unmoved if we destroyed the entire human race. I hate Nature!

Jean-Paul Marat We invented the Revolution, but we didn't know how to run it. Look. Everyone wants to keep something from the past, a souvenir of the old regime. So, this man decides to keep a painting; this man keeps his mistress; this man keeps his horse; this man keeps his garden. That man keeps his farm lands; that man keeps his house in the country; that man keeps his factories; that man couldn't bear to part with his shipyards; that man keeps his army; and that one keeps his King. And so we sit here and write into the Declaration of the Rights of Man, "the sanctity of private property". And now we see where that leads: Every man is equally free to fight, fraternally and with equal arms, of course. Every man, his own millionaire. Man against man, group against group, in happy, mutual robbery. And we sit here, more oppressed than when we begun, and they think the Revolution's been won.

Marquis de Sade To me, the only reality is imagination; the world inside myself. The Revolution no longer interests me.

Herald The Revolution came and went, and unrest was replaced by discontent.

Herald Crucifixion, all good Christians know, is the most sympathetic way to go.

Monsieur Coulmier You really can't call this education. It isn't making my patients any better. They're all becoming over-excited. After all, we invited the public here to show them that our patients are not all social lepers.

Herald We only show these evil massacres because this indisputably occurred. Please, calmly watch these barbarous displays, which could not happen nowadays. The men of that time, mostly now demised, were primitive; we are more civilized.

Marquis de Sade But what's the point of a revolution without general copulation?

Marquis de Sade It's easy to get mass movements moving. Movements that move in vicious circles. I don't believe in idealists who charge down blind alleys. I don't believe in any of the sacrifices that have been made for any cause. I believe only in myself.

Jean-Paul Marat I believe in the Revolution! We have routed out the old tyrants, and now we have new tyrants. But still I believe in the Revolution. The spoils have been grabbed by businessman, middle-men, financiers, salesmen, operators, manipulators. But the Revolution must continue.

Singers String up every aristocrat!/Out with the priests and let them live on their fat!

Singers Marat, we're poor/And the poor stay poor/Marat, don't make us wait any more/We want our rights, and we don't care how/We want a revolution, now!

Kokol What has gone wrong with the men who are ruling?

Polpoch I'd like to know who they think they're fooling.

Cucurucu They told us the torture was over and gone.

Rossignol But everyone knows the same torture goes on.

Marquis de Sade Man is a destroyer. But if he kills and takes no pleasure in it, he's a machine. He should destroy with passion, like a man.

Kokol We crown you with these leaves, Marat, because of the laurel shortage. The laurels all went to decorate generals, academics and heads of state - and their heads are enormous!

Marquis de Sade Compassion. Now, Marat, you are talking like an aristocrat. Compassion is the property of the privileged classes. When the pitier lowers himself to give to a beggar, he throbs with contempt. To protect his riches he pretends to be moved, and his gift to the beggar amounts to no more than a kick. No, Marat, no small emotions, please, your feelings were never petty. For you just as for me, only the most extreme actions matter.

Jean-Paul Marat If I am extreme I am not extreme in the same way as you. Against Nature’s silence I use action. In the vast indifference I invent a meaning. I don’t watch unmoved, I intervene and say that this and this are wrong, and I work to alter them and improve them. The important thing is to pull yourself up by your own hair, to turn yourself inside out and see the whole world with fresh eyes.