Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires.

Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.

The more defects a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more resounding his success.

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

What is more immoral than war?

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.