To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell.

Will it not be felt that Virtue, however beautiful, becomes the worst of all attitudes when it is found too feeble to contend with Vice...

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.

We are no guiltier in following the primative impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves.

Has not Nature proved, in giving us the strength necessary to submit them to our desires, that we have the right to do so?

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

All universal moral principles are idle fantasies.

Sexual pleasure is, I agree, a passion to which all others are subordinate but in which they all unite.

Any enjoyment is weakened when shared.

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.

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

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being, the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of, is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness --- it means more to me than my life itself.

No kind of sensation is keener and more active than that of pain its impressions are unmistakable.