The fact that we can become accustomed to anything, however disgusting at first, makes it necessary to examine carefully everything we have become accustomed to.

I would exchange every painting of Christ for one snapshot.

It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles.

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.

There is in man a specific lust for cruelty which infects even his passion of pity and makes it savage.