Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.

I don't know what the heart is, not I: I only use the word to denote the mind's frailties.

Are wars anything but the means whereby a nation is nourished, whereby it is strengthened, whereby it is buttressed?

Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth.

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

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

Sex is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.