“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.”

Dread not infanticide; the crime is imaginary: we are always mistress of what we carry in our womb, and we do no more harm in destroying this kind of matter than in evacuating another, by medicines, when we feel the need.

I have supported my deviations with reasons; I did not stop at mere doubt; I have vanquished, I have uprooted,

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.

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.

My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections; it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it; and were it, I’d not do so.

The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool.

Though sympathy alone can’t alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.

Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day. But today, the Anniversary of the day he died, is a day when all bets are off.

Hope and fear cannot alter the seasons

Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds… true love?

We have become frighteningly effective at altering nature.

Beer is sacred business, a mood-altering food substance that may have preserved the human species.