“You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit othere is a fool.”

The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same being who produces the impressions.

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.

Any enjoyment is weakened when shared.

Beauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity, the extraordinary to the commonplace

There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.

Can we become other than what we are?

I have destroyed everything in my heart that might have interfered with my pleasure.

The pleasure of the senses is always regulated in accordance with the imagination. Man can aspire to felicity only by serving all the whims of his imagination.

Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.

The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

Hence, I must recommend to you prompt exactness, submissiveness, and total self-abnegation that you be enabled to heed naught but our desires; let them be your laws, fly to do their bidding, anticipate them, cause them to be born.

All men are born free, all have equal rights: never should we lose sight of those principles; according to which never may there be granted to one sex the legitimate right to lay monopolizing hands upon the other, and never may one of the sexes, or classes, arbitrarily possess the other.

If Nature denies eternity to beings, it follows that their destruction is one of her laws.

Never may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the possession of slaves.

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.

All human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.

Everything alters me, but nothing changes me.

Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.

The change is from inner to outer. We start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions.

If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That’s the beginning of social protest.

I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.