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" If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal. "

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" People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you've got to keep your feet warm. "

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" If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him. "

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" Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other. "

" The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population. "

" From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step. "

" Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. "

" Every man has his dignity. I'm willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to. "

" It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. "

" There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. "

" It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire. "

" It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it. "

" The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers. "

" Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy. "

" There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father. "

" All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs. "

" Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey. "

" We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves. "

" Good music is very close to primitive language. "

" Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things. "

" Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs. "

" Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild. "

" Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth. "

" There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies. "

" The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me. "

" We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates. "

" There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it. "

" Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad. "

" The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned. "

" There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint. "

" When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music. "