The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

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.

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell.

Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands.