But to declare his wishes only in some unknown corner of Asia, to choose the most double-dealing and the most superstitious of peoples as followers, and the vilest, most ridiculous, and most roguish working man...

Humane sentiments are baseless, mad, and improper; they are incredibly feeble; never do they withstand the gainsaying passions, never do they resist bare necessity.

Murder is a horror, but an often necessary horror, never criminal, which it is essential to tolerate in a republican State. Is it or is it not a crime? If it is not, why make...

Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!

Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again...