“Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race.”

Were he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this God you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him?

Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime.

Either kill me or take me as I am, because I’ll be damned if I ever change.

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

According to these irrefutable principles, death is hence no more than a change of form, an imperceptible passage from one existence into another.

All universal moral principles are idle fancies.

There are thorns everywhere, but along the path of vice, roses bloom above them.

Don’t have children: they deform women’s bodies and turn into an enemy 20 years later.

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

We monsters are necessary to nature also.

Oh, Satan! one and unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all!

Let us give ourselves indiscriminately to everything our passions suggest, and we will always be happy…

Sensual excess drives out pity in man.

What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep.

Variety, multiplicity are the two most powerful vehicles of lust.

Let it never appear in any place in its own name but always covered by another name and another occupation.

I appear to be normal and have the look of an in-shape man, but if we were to go to a pool party I would go with my shirt on.

Interpreting it as best you can, and leaving your mind open to the fact that new evidence will appear tomorrow.

This is the case with thousands: they appear desirous of knowing the truth, but have not patience to wait in a proper way to receive an answer to their question.

Because of the pot the water appears to be divided into two parts; because of the pot you seem to perceive an inside and an outside.

If a white cloth is stained even with a small spot, the stain appears very ugly indeed. So the smallest fault of a holy man becomes painfully prominent.

When the fruit appears the blossom drops off. Love of God is the fruit, and rituals are the blossom.

All this world’s noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!