“It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.”

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

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

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.

Religion has really spawned some monsters. It always has, historically. Go all the way back to the Inquisition, you know, the Crusades, the Jehad and so on.

The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal – or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.

Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.

There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.

There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships.

There are those who, attracted by grass, flowers, mountains, and waters, flow into the Buddha Way.

I like the way hip-hop is now. It’s grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it.

Did ole Hank really do it this way?