Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency?

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

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.

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

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

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

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