We priests are the surgeons of souls, and it is our duty to deliver them of shameful secrets they would fain conceal, with hands careful to neither wound no pollute.

They had...finished their lives before their death - which is not always the end of life and often comes long before the end.

Yet, whether to the glory or to the shame of human nature, in what we call pleasure (with an excess of scorn, perhaps) there are abysses as deep as those of love.

We priests are the surgeons of souls, and it is our duty to deliver them of shameful secrets they would fain conceal, with hands careful to neither wound no pollute.

The crimes of extreme civilization are probably worse than those of extreme barbarism, because of their refinement, the corruption they presuppose, and their superior degree of intellectuality.

The crimes of extreme civilization are certainly more atrocious than those of extreme barbarism.

I did not want to be taken for a fool-the typical French reason for performing the worst of deeds without remorse.