The reasoning man who rejects the superstitions of simpletons necessarily becomes their enemy; he must expect as much and be prepared to laugh at the consequences.

Oh! my friend, never seek to corrupt the person whom you love, it can go further than you think...

It has been estimated that more than 50 million individuals have lost their lives to wars and religious massacres. Is there even one among them worth the blood of a single bird?

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.

My vengeance needs blood.

It is only by sacrificing everything to sensual pleasure that this being known as Man, cast into the world in spite of himself, may succeed in sowing a few roses on the thorns of life.

A little less vice is virtuousness in a very vicious heart

It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.

Nothing quite encourages as does one's first unpunished crime.

I suggest somewhere that anyone who wishes to write and has no aptitude for it would be better off making shoes for ladies and boots for men.

This monster was outfitted with faculties so gigantic that even the broadest thoroughfares would still have appeared too narrow for him.

Min en ep r i koskaan valinnoissani ja koska olen aina varma, ett l yd n nautinnon siit mit teen, en koskaan katumalla turmele sen vieh tyst .

The greatest pleasures are born of conquered repugnancies.

Those who are unhappy clutch at shadows, and to give themselves an enjoyment that truth refuses them, they artfully bring into being all sorts of illusions.

It has pleased Nature so to make us that we attain happiness only by way of pain.

Only two things are required to accredit an alleged miracle: a mountebank and a crowd of spineless lookers-on.

...Madame, I have become a whore through good-will and libertine through virtue.

Self-interest lies behind all that men do, forming the important motive for all their actions; this rule has never deceived me