“Sins of the flesh are nothing. They are maladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured. Sins of the soul alone are shameful.”

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”

“How does one cure the soul? Through the senses”

“All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon.”

“And once, or twice, to throw the dice is a gentlemanly game, But he does not win who plays with Sin in the secret house of shame”

“The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.”

“memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away”