You’re a gentleman,” they used to say to him. “You shouldn’t have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that’s no occupation for a gentleman.

I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts.

Civilization merely develops man's capacity for a greater variety of sensations, and ... absolutely nothing else.

Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.

There is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.

There are three forces, the only three forces capable of conquering and enslaving forever the conscience of these weak rebels in the interests of their own happiness. They are: the miracle, the mystery and authority.

Everywhere I am the object of an unbelievable esteem, the interest in me is, quite simply, tremendous.