There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.

How delightful are the pleasures of the imagination! In those delectable moments, the whole world is ours; not a single creature resists us, we devastate the world, we repopulate it with new objects which, in turn, we immolate. The means to every crime is ours, and we employ them all, we multiply the horror a hundredfold.

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.

I've been to Hell. You've only read about it.

I am about to put foward some major ideas; they will be heard and pondered. If not all of them please, surely a few will; in some sort, then, I shall have contributed to the progress of our age, and shall be content.

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

Religions are the cradles of despotism.