Anything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or futility; and because your god having to be one or the other of the two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, and in the second a fool.

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

Fear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto.

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all.

The completest submissiveness is your lot, and that is all.

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime.

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