The true comic muse is the one with tears running down under her laughing mask.

A real apple is more beautiful than a painted one, and a live woman is more beautiful than a Venus of stone.

You know how to paint pleasure, cruelty, arrogance in glowing colors.

Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason.

You are cold, while you yourself fan flames.

Whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.

Once I no longer exist as I am, out of what consideration then should I forgo anything? Should I belong to a man I don't love simply because I used to love him? No, I forgo nothing, I love any man who appeals to me and I make any man who loves me happy. Is that ugly? No, it is at least far more beautiful than my cruelly delighting in the tortures incited by my charms and my virtuously turning my back on the poor man who pines away for me. I am young, rich, and beautiful, and just as I am, I live cheerfully for pleasure and enjoyment.