“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. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. 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.”

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

“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! ”

“What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep, 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.”

“Behold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do: scandal, seduction, bad example, incest, adultery, sodomy! Oh, Satan! one and unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all!”

“My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way.”

“I assumed that everything must yield to me, that the entire universe had to flatter my whims, and that I had the right to satisfy them at will.”