Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature's mandates.

One weeps not save when one is afraid, and that is why kings are tyrants.

Hope is the most sensitive part of a poor wretch's soul; whoever raises it only to torment him is behaving like the executioners in Hell who, they say, incessantly renew old wounds and concentrate their attention on that area of it that is already lacerated.

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.

I assumed that everything must yield to me, that the entire universe had to flatter my whims, and that I had the right to satisfy them at will.

The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime - for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold.

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