Venus in Furs Quotes

“Is there for the lover any greater cruelty than the faithlessness of his beloved?”
“Oh,” she countered, “so long as we love we are faithful, but you want faithfulness without love from the woman and giving of herself without pleasure – so who is the cruel one – the man or the woman?”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“How handsome your are now, your eyes are half broken as in a trance--they delight me, they sweep me away. If you were whipped to death, your gaze would have to be wonderful as you breathed your last. You have the eyes of a martyr.”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“Don't you know me by now? Yes, I am cruel--since you take so much pleasure in that word--and am I not entitled to be cruel? Man desires, woman is desired. That is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Nature has put man at woman's mercy through his passion, and woman is misguided if she fails to make him her subject, her slave, her toy and ultimately fails to laugh and betray him.”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“Gracious, devilish, mythical lady.
Put your foot upon your slave,
Stretching out your marble body
Under myrtles and agaves.”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“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? 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, Venus in Furs

“Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason, nor do the assets or blemishes that we discover tempt us to devotion or intimidate us. It is a sweet, mournful, mysterious power that drives us, and we stop thinking, feeling, wishing, we let ourselves drift along and never ask where we are drifting”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs