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

The ultimate triumph of philosophy would be to cast light upon the mysterious ways in which Providence moves to achieve the designs it has for man.

Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

Crime is the soul of lust. What would pleasure be if it were not accompanied by crime? It is not the object of debauchery that excites us, rather the idea of evil.

We monsters are necessary to nature also.

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

At all times, in every century, every age, there has been such a connection between despotism and religion that it is infinitely apparent and demonstrated a thousand times over, that in destroying one, the other must be undermined, for the simple reason that the first will always put the law into the service of the second.