Oh, I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime — I have seen through present-day Christianity only too well. That icy coldness hypnotized even me, in my youth — but I have taken my revenge since then. How? By worshipping the love which they, the theologians, call sin, by respecting a whore, etc., and not too many would-be respectable, pious ladies. To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is just the opposite.

Letter to Theo (October 1884)