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It is others' hardships which cause us to experience our enjoyments to the full; surrounded by persons whose happiness is equal to ours, we would never know contentment or ease: that is why they say, and very wisely indeed, that to be happy, you ought never look upward, but always at those who are below you. If then 'tis the spectacle of the luckless who must necessarily complete our happiness by the comparison they furnish between themselves and us, one must take care not to relieve such downtrodden as exist: for by raising them, through this aid, from the class which provides elements for your comparisons, you deprive yourself of these comparisons, and hence of that which improves your pleasures. However, simply to limit oneself to witholding aid from the needy in order to preserve this class useful for comparisons whence the best portion of your happiness derives, that is not enough; you must neglect no opportunity to generate misery, both in order to increase the size of this class generally, and in order, particularly, to create a sector of it which, your own personal handiwork, sharpens the delights that are going to result for you from the comparisons it will provide.

--Sade, Norceuil in Juliette

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