Variety, multiplicity are the two most powerful vehicles of lust.

There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship.

Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.

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

Every principle is a judgment, every judgment the outcome of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercise of the senses; whence it follows that religious principles bear upon nothing whatever and are not in the slightest innate. Ignorance and fear, you will repeat to them, ignorance and fear - those are the twin bases of every religion.

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

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