Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.

Variety, multiplicity are the two most powerful vehicles of lust.

I've been to Hell. You've only read about it.

One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.

Sex should be a perfect balance of pain and pleasure. Without that symmetry, sex becomes a routine rather than an indulgence.

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.