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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch Quotes

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“That love, which is the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in you. As soon as you wish to be natural, you become common. To you nature seems something hostile; you have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar. And if ever one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff, while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every hour, but their fragrance does not agree with you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us.”

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Book:Venus in Furs
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“I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would subjugate me by his inate strength. And every man—I know this very well—as soon as he falls in love becomes weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself into the woman's hands, kneels down before her. The only man whom I could love permanently would be he before whom I should have to kneel.”

Venus In Furs
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“He simply painted the portrait of some aristocratic Mesalina, and was tactful enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her majestic allure with cold satisfaction. He looks as though his task were becoming burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery. Later an 'expert' in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the name of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair model wrapped herself, probably more for fear of a cold than out of modesty, have become a symbol of the tyranny and cruelty that constitute woman's essence and her beauty.”

Venus In Furs
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“Sin embargo, no por ello pienso vivir eternamente, y cuando, con mi último suspiro, todo haya acabado acá abajo para Wanda Dunaiew, ¿qué ventaja sacaré de que mi espíritu cante en un coro de ángeles o de que mis cenizas tomen una nueva existencia? De uno u otro modo, yo no renaceré tal como soy, de modo que he de renunciar a aquella consideración. ¿Pertenecer a un hombre a quien no amo, sólo por la razón de que le amé alguna vez? No, no renunciaré; amo a quien me place y le hago dichoso. ¿Acaso es repugnante esto? No; por lo menos es mucho más hermoso que si me regocijara del tormento cruel que provocan mis encantos, y me desviara, virtuosa, del desgraciado que se consume por mí. Soy joven, rica y bella, y vivo sólo para el goce y el placer.”

Venus In Furs
Author:Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
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“Now her eyes meet mine like green lightning-they are green, these eyes of hers, whose power is so indescribable-green, but as are precious stones, or deep unfathomable mountain lakes.”

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Book:Venus in Furs: A Novel ; Letters of Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch and Emilie Mataja
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“I imagine that the goddess of Love has come down from Olympus to visit a mortal. So as not to die of cold in this modern world of ours, she wraps her sublime body in great heavy furs and warms her feet on the prostrate body of her lover. I imagine the favorite of this beautiful despot, who is whipped when his mistress grows tired of kissing him, and whose love only grows more intense the more he is trampled underfoot. I shall call the picture "Venus in Furs”

WorldBodyBeautifulDiesGrowsImagineFeetModernColdLoversKissingTiredHeavyIntenseMortalsGoddessImagine ThatSublimeModern WorldMistressWrapsFurVenusDespotsKissing HimOlympusVenus In Furs
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“Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers everything, because it must. It is not our judgment that leads us; it is neither the advantages nor the faults which we discover, that make us abandon ourselves, or that repel us. It is a sweet, soft, enigmatic power that drives us on. We cease to think, to feel, to will; we let ourselves be carried away by it, and ask not whither?”

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“Once I no longer exist as I am, out of what consideration then should I forgo anything? Should I belong to a man I don't love simply because I used to love him? No, I forgo nothing, I love any man who appeals to me and I make any man who loves me happy. Is that ugly? No, it is at least far more beautiful than my cruelly delighting in the tortures incited by my charms and my virtuously turning my back on the poor man who pines away for me. I am young, rich, and beautiful, and just as I am, I live cheerfully for pleasure and enjoyment.”

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“Cats exercise... a magic influence upon highly developed men of intellect. This is why these long-tailed Graces of the animal kingdom, these adorable, scintillating electric batteries have been the favorite animal of a Mohammed, Cardinal Richlieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland.”

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Book:Venus in Furs: A Novel ; Letters of Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch and Emilie Mataja
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“My husband's personality was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow. On the very night of his death he took me in his arms, and during the many months when he lay dying in his wheel chair, he often said jokingly to me: 'Well, have you already picked out a lover?' I blushed with shame. 'Don't deceive me,' he added on one occasion, 'that would seem ugly to me, but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably several. You are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you need toys.”

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Book:Venus in Furs
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“Nature admits of no permanence in the relation between man and woman. It is only man's egoism that wants to keep woman like some buried treasure. All endeavors to introduce permanence in love, the most changeable thing in this changeable human existence, have gone shipwreck in spite of religious ceremonies, vows, and legalities.”

MenWantHumansReligiousExistenceMarriageGoneMen And WomenRelationTreasureSpiteEndeavorBuriedIntroducingCeremonyVowHuman ExistenceEgoismPermanenceShipwreckLegalityVenus In FursBuried Treasure
Book:Venus in Furs
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