Happiness implied a choice, and within that choice a concerted will, a lucid desire.

Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject. They light up with their passion an exclusive world in which they recognize their climate.

No excuses ever, for anyone; that is my principle at the outset. I deny the good intention, the respectable mistake, the indiscretion, the extenuating circumstance. With me there is no giving of absolution or blessing.

Whatever prevents you from doing your work has become your work.

The slave and those whose present life is miserable and who can find no consolation in the heavens are assured that at least the future belongs to them. The future is the only kind of property that the masters willingly concede to the slaves.

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

True debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligations. In it you possess only yourself, hence it remains the favorite pastime of the great lovers of their own person.