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

The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool.

Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.

They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch.

In an age that is utterly corrupt, the best policy is to do as others do.

One must do violence to the object of one's desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.