“In libertinage, nothing is frightful, because everything libertinage suggests is also a natural inspiration.”

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

Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.

Even those that are not frightful, and there is not one amongst them all that cannot be demonstrated within the boundaries of nature.

One must feel sorry for those who have strange tastes, but never insult them. Their wrong is Nature’s too; they are no more responsible for having come into the world with tendencies unlike ours than are we for being born bandy-legged or well-proportioned.

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

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.

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.

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

The parenting style that is good for grit is also the parenting style good for most other things: Be really, really demanding, and be very, very supportive.

With ‘Lady Macbeth,’ I had two other things offered to me, and they would have also been very fun, but you just have to figure that out. And then you do it.

I feel strongly, because a man who will himself die one day in the not to distant future and, also, as a psychiatrist who spent decades dealing with death anxiety, that confronting death allows us, not to open some noisome.

For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.

I’m Japanese, and I’m also white American, and neither camp wants me in their camp.

My husband always felt that a marriage and career don’t mix. That’s why he’s never worked.

You also have to research your competition.

We are also a company that understands community.