Fear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

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 debility to which Nature condemned women incontestably proves that her design is for man, who then more than ever enjoys his strength, to exercise it in all the violent forms that suit him best, by means of tortures, if he be so inclined, or worse.

Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth.

Let not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders.

Certain souls may seem harsh to others, but it is just a way, beknownst only to them, of caring and feeling more deeply.