Nothing is necessary except God, and nothing is less necessary than pain.

We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free beings under divine guidance.

The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death.

Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.

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.

It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them.

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.