Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch Quotes & Sayings

Never feel safe with the woman you love, for a woman's nature conceals more dangers than you think. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

That woman, as nature has created her and as man is at present educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he, and is his equal in education and wor. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

But you cannot deny, that man and woman are mortal enemies, in your serene sunlit world as well as in our foggy one. In love there is union into a single being for a short time only, capable of only one thought, one sensation, one will, in order to be then further disunited. And you know this better than I; whichever of the two fails to subjugate will soon feel the feet of the other on his neck - — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The contempt shown him by Mardona still inflamed his passion, and that passion was nourished by the widespread respect that the Mother of God commanded and the blind obedience she inspired. And it seemed to Sabadil that from her emanated a light that surrounded her. To him, she appeared so beautiful, more beautiful than ever. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The individual who rebels against the arrangements of society is ostracized, branded, stoned. So be it. I am willing to take the risk; my principles are very pagan. I will live my own life as it pleases me. I am willing to do without your hypocritical respect; I prefer to be happy.
The inventors of the Christian marriage have done well, simultaneously to invent immortality. I, however, have no wish to live eternally. When with my last breath everything as far as Wanda von Dunajew is concerned comes to an end here below, what does it profit me whether my pure spirit joins the choirs of angels, or whether my dust goes into the formation of new beings?
Shall I belong to one man whom I don't love, merely because I have once loved him? No, I do not renounce; I love everyone who pleases me, and give happiness to everyone who loves me.
Is that ugly? No, it is more beautiful by far. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Work on.
Work as if every time you started with and every time you finish. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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 becomecommon. 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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I take a cruel joy in seeing you tremble and writhe beneath my whip, and in hearing your groans and wails; I want to go on whipping without pity until you beg for mercy, until you lose your senses. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The person who doesn't know how to subjugate will all too quickly feel the other's foot on the nape of his neck. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Shall I belong to one man whom I don't love, merely because I have once loved him? No, I do not renounce; I love everyone who pleases me, and give happiness to everyone who loves me. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Why become well-versed in science and the arts if not to impress a lovely little woman? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

So," Wanda cried, "a woman in furs is nothing more than a large cat, a charged electric battery? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

All about us the earth steamed; mists rose up toward heaven like clouds of incense; a shattered rainbow still hovered in the air. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I love her passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally uniform, eternally calm, stony smile. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason ... — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Through man's passions, nature has given man into woman's hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

My heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Until then I had lived as I had painted and versified - that is, I never got far beyond priming canvas, beyond penning an outline, a first act, a first stanza. There are simply people who start all sorts of things and yet never finish any of them. And that was the kind of person I was. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I saw sensuality as sacred, indeed the only sacredness, I saw woman and her beauty as divine since her calling is the most important task of existence: the propagation of the species. I saw woman as the personification of nature, as Isis, and man as her priest, her slave; and I pictured her treating him as cruelly as Nature, who, when she no longer needs something that has served her, tosses it away, while her abuses, indeed her killing it, are its lascivious bliss. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You are cold, while you yourself fan flames. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Woman, as Nature has created her and as she is currently reared by man, is his enemy and can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. She will be able to become his companion only when she has the same rights as he, when she is his equal in education and work. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Place thy foot upon thy slave,
Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams;
Among the shadows, dark and grave,
Thy extended body softly gleams. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Every man
I know this
turns weak, pliant, ridiculous as soon as he's in love. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You look at love, and especially woman, as something hostile, something against which you put up a defense, even if unsuccessfully. You feel that their power over you gives you a sensation of pleasurable torture, of pungent cruelty. This is a genuinely modern point of view. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Be then my slave, and know what it means to be delivered into the hands of a woman. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

She had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge fur, and rolled herself up trembling like a cat. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You have a curious way of arousing one's imagination, stimulating all one's nerves, and making one's pulses beat faster. You put an aureole on vice, provided only if it is honest. Your ideal is a daring courtesan of genius. Oh, you are the kind of man who will corrupt a woman to her very last fiber. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

It is only man's egoism that wants to keep woman like some buried treasure. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood ... — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Man desires, woman is desired. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

A real apple is more beautiful than a painted one, and a live woman is more beautiful than a Venus of stone. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The ideal which I strive to realize in my life is the serene
sensuousness of the Greeks
pleasure without pain. I do not believe
in the kind of love which is preached by Christianity, by the
moderns, by the knights of the spirit. Yes, look at me, I am worse
than a heretic, I am a pagan. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

There is no describing the feeling of being mistreated by a successful rival in front of the woman you worship. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

It is merely the egoism of men, who wants to bury a woman like a treasure. All attempts at using vows, contracts, and holy ceremonies have failed to bring permanence into the most changeable aspect of changeable human existence, namely love. Can you deny that our Christina world is rotting? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Alas, woman is faithful as long as she loves, but you demand that she be faithful without love and give herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel then, woman or man? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will paint her, and go mad. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped,
deserves to be whipped. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

We are faithful as long as we love, but you
demand faithfulness of a woman without love, and the giving of
herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel there
woman or man? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Despite all the progress of civilization, women have remained exactly as they emerged from the hand of Nature. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You of the North in general take love too soberly and seriously. You talk of duties where there should be only a question of pleasure. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The presence of cats exercises such a magic influence upon highly organized men of intellect. This is why these long-tailed Graces of the animal kingdom ... have been the favorite animal of a Mahommed, Cardinal Richelieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

People who want to live like Olympian gods must have slaves whom they throw into their fishponds and gladiators who fight during their masters sumptuous banquets-and the pleasure-seekers never care if some blood splatters on them. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

But why talk in superlatives, as if something that is beautiful could be surpassed? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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 — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Watch out, I have a large, very large fur, with which I could cover you up entirely, and I have a mind to catch you in it as in a net. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You modern men, you children of reason, cannot begin to appreciate love as pure bliss and divine serenity. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The real comic muse is the one underwhose laughing mask tears roll down. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The true comic muse is the one with tears running down under her laughing mask. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Dangerous forces lie within me. You awaken them, and not to your advantage. You know how to paint pleasure, cruelty, arrogance in glowing colors. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Desire followed the glance, pleasure followed desire — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You view love and especially women ... as something hostile, something against which you defend yourself, although in vain, something whose power over you, however, you feel as a sweet torment, a prickling cruelty: this is truly a modern attitude. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

It is merely the egoism of the man, who wants to bury a woman like a treasure. All attempts at using vows, contracts, and holy ceremonies have failed to bring permanence into the most changeable aspect of changeable human existence, namely love. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I am nothing but a dilettante,
a dilettante in painting, in poetry, in music, and several other of the
so-called unprofitable arts.
Above all else I am a dilettante in life
Up to the present I have lived as I have painted and written poetry.
I never
got far beyond the preparation, the plan, the first act, the first stanza.
There are people like that who begin everything, and never finish anything.
I am
such a one. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Pleasure alone makes existence worthwhile. A pleasure-seeker has a difficult time parting from life. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The struggle of the spirit against the senses is the gospel of modern man. I do not wish to have any part in it. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I really believe," said Wanda thoughtfully,"that your madness is nothing but a demonic, unsatisfied sensuality. Our unnatural way of life must generate such illnesses. Were you less virtuous, you would be completely sane. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Every woman has the instinct, the propensity to profit from her charms, and there's a lot to be said for giving oneself without love, without pleasure. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

You cannot deny that love lasts for only a brief moment, uniting two beings as a single being that is capable of only one thought, one sensation, one will. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Woman's power lies in man's passion, and she knows how to use it, if man doesn't understand himself. He has only one choice: to be the tyrant over or the slave of woman. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

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. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Yet I am not writing with ordinary ink, but with red blood that drips
from my heart. All its wounds long scarred over have opened and it
throbs and hurts, and now and then a tear falls on the paper. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

The stranger astonished him more and more by her dignified and serious manner. It's usually the case, isn't it, that a young girl giggles when a man speaks with her, or else blushes, hides her face, and behaves awkwardly? The stranger was nothing like this. She maintained her poise, natural, cold and majestic. He delighted in her bearing, his fascination growing all the time; his eyes sparkled and his half-open mouth, showing his white teeth, made him look as if he needed to breathe more than usual. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

If I can't enjoy the full and total happiness of love, then I want to drain its torments, its tortures to the dregs; then I want the woman I love to mistreat me, betray me, and the more cruelly the better. That too is a pleasure. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch