Lycurgus, Numa, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, all these great rogues, all these great thought-tyrants, knew how to associate the divinities they fabricated with their own boundless ambition.

To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell.

Beauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity, the extraordinary to the commonplace

Crime is to the passions what nervous fluid is to life: it sustains them, it supplies their strength.

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

I have supported my deviations with reasons; I did not stop at mere doubt; I have vanquished, I have uprooted, I have destroyed everything in my heart that might have interfered with my pleasure.

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.