Were he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this God you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him?

How delicious to corrupt, to stifle all semblances of virtue and religion in that young heart!

Do not breed. Nothing gives less pleasure than childbearing. Pregnancies are damaging to health, spoil the figure, wither the charms, and it's the cloud of uncertainty forever hanging over these events that darkens a husband's mood.

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

In libertinage, nothing is frightful, because everything libertinage suggests is also a natural inspiration; the most extraordinary, the most bizarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every law, every human institution... even those that are not frightful, and there is not one amongst them all that cannot be demonstrated within the boundaries of nature.

Conspiracy! Intrigue! A rapidly thickening plot! Add some bestiality and a lecherous priest and I'd say you have the beginnings of a beautiful novel.

It is not the opinions or the vices of private individuals that are harmful to the State, but rather the behavior of public figures.