Marat/Sade

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

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

"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!"

"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."

"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."

"But what's the point of a revolution without general copulation?"

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

"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!"

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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!"

"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!"

"Patrick Magee - Marquis de Sade"

"Ian Richardson - Jean-Paul Marat"

"Michael Williams - Herald"

"Glenda Jackson - Charlotte Corday"

"Clifford Rose - Abbé du Coulmier"