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

When I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would provoke a general corruption or a distubance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt.

It is not the opinions or the vices of private individuals that are harmful to the State, but rather the behavior of public figures.

Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.

Conscience is not the voice of Nature but only the voice of prejudice.

So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all.

Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.

Here am I: at one stroke incestuous, adulteress, sodomite, and all that in a girl who only lost her maidenhead today! What progress, my friends with what rapidity I advance along the thorny road of vice!

What we are doing here is only the image of what we would like to do.

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

Sex should be a perfect balance of pain and pleasure. Without that symmetry, sex becomes a routine rather than an indulgence.

At all times, in every century, every age, there has been such a connection between despotism and religion that it is infinitely apparent and demonstrated a thousand times over, that in destroying one, the other must be undermined.

If the objects who serve us feel ecstacy, they are much more often concerned with themselves than with us, and our own enjoyment is consequently impaired.

For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself.

My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!

The debility to which Nature condemned women incontestably proves that her design is for man, who then more than ever enjoys his strength, to exercise it in all the violent forms that suit him best, by means of tortures, if he be so inclined, or worse.

[With Photosynth,] all of those photos become linked together, and they make something emergent that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

Those who die for their country are martyrs and those who live for their country are greater martyrs.

There is no greater misery than false joys.

Some think they are seeking their own soul’s truth but the greater Soul is thinking and seeking through them

Even the most blockheaded bureaucrat, provided he loves peace, is a greater lover of the arts than any so-called art-lover who loves the arts of war.

The irony is palpable – technical access has never been greater, cultural access never weaker.

Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.

The weaker the partner is viewed by the Muslims, then the greater the anger which they express. And this anger is often carefully staged.