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.

There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship.

In libertinage, nothing is frightful, because everything libertinage suggests is also a natural inspiration; the most extraordinary, the most bizarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every law, every human institution... even those that are not frightful, and there is not one amongst them all that cannot be demonstrated within the boundaries of nature.

It is only by enlarging the scope of one’s tastes and one’s fantasies, by sacrificing everything to pleasure, that the unfortunate individual called Man, thrown despite himself into this sad world, can succeed in gathering a few roses among life’s thorns

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

It is not the opinions or the vices of private individuals that are harmful to the State, but rather the behavior of public figures.

Don't have children: they deform women's bodies and turn into an enemy 20 years later.