Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all.

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.

What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep, when I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would provoke a general corruption or a distubance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt.

No kind of sensation is keener and more active than that of pain its impressions are unmistakable.

I've already told you: the only way to a woman's heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.

'Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.