War is thus divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature which are as much general as particular. War is divine in the mysterious glory that surrounds it and in the no less inexplicable attraction that draws us to it. War is divine by the manner in which it breaks out.

In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.

Man's destructive hand spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing.

It is not the mediocrity of women's education which makes their weakness; it is their weakness which necessarily causes their mediocrity.

I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.

Christianity was preached by ignorant men and believed by servants, and that is why it resembles nothing ever known.

Women have a genius for love; men can only learn the art indifferently.