Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.

'Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.

The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool.

The primary and most beautiful of Nature's qualities is motion, which agitates her at all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves it by means of crimes only.

Crime is the soul of lust. What would pleasure be if it were not accompanied by crime? It is not the object of debauchery that excites us, rather the idea of evil.

Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.

Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands.