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Why do you complain of your fate when you could so easily change it?
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In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.
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Sensual excess drives out pity in man.
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Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.
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Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.
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Between understanding and faith immediate connections must subsist.
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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.
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All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one.
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'Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.
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Nothing we can do outrages Nature directly. Our acts of destruction give her new vigour and feed her energy, but none of our wreckings can weaken her power.
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'Sex' is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.
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She had already allowed her delectable lover to pluck that flower which, so different from the rose to which it is nevertheless sometimes compared, has not the same faculty of being reborn each spring.
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The more defects a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more resounding his success.
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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.
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Variety, multiplicity are the two most powerful vehicles of lust.
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Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes.
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One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.
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Are wars anything but the means whereby a nation is nourished, whereby it is strengthened, whereby it is buttressed?
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I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it. 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.
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...there is a sum of evil equal to the sum of good, the continuing equilibrium of the world requires that there be as many good people as wicked people...
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There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.
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All universal moral principles are idle fancies.
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Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.
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To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell.