One grows out of pity when it's useless.

I was tormented by my desire for a woman ... I thought so much about a woman, about women, about all the ones I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had enjoyed them, that my cell would be filled with their faces and crowded with my desires.

I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

When silence or tricks of language contribute to maintaining an abuse that must be reformed or a suffering that can be relieved, then there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.

Being is good, but getting rich is better.... If the gods had only the riches of men's adoration, they would be as poor as poor Caligula.

Don't believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them. All they really want is to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves.

The loss of love is the loss of all rights, even though one had them all.