Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

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.

The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable.

Are wars anything but the means whereby a nation is nourished, whereby it is strengthened, whereby it is buttressed?

Happiness is an abstraction, it is a product of the imagination, it is a way of being moved, which depends entirely on our way of seeing and feeling.

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

No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful.