What does one want when one is engaged in the sexual act? That everything around you give you its utter attention, think only of you, care only for you...every man wants to be a tyrant when he fornicates.

Between understanding and faith immediate connections must subsist.

Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!

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.

It is only by enlarging the scope of one’s tastes and one’s fantasies, by sacrificing everything to pleasure, that the unfortunate individual called Man, thrown despite himself into this sad world, can succeed in gathering a few roses among life’s thorns

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

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