Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others.

I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call life.

You men do not understand the delights of a glance, of a pressure of the hand... but as for me, I swear to you that, when I listen to your voice, I feel such a deep, strange bliss that the most passionate kisses could not take its place.

I am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

In people's eyes I readPages of malice and sin.

For what did the creator prepare me,Why did he so terribly contradictThe hopes of my youth?