Quotes from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Aber du willst nur mein sein unter Bedingungen, während ich dir bedingungslos gehöre.

Meanwhile, in the garden they dug large pits and in each pit they buried ten men alive. On both sides of the gate they constructed huge pyramids made up of the Derevlian commoners' severed heads.

C'est l'égoïsme de l'homme qui seul veut enterrer la femme comme un trésor. Toutes les tentatives ont échoué qui ont voulu introduire — par des cérémonies consacrées, par des serments ou des contrats — la durée dans ce qu'il y a de plus mouvant au sein de la mouvance de l'être humain, dans l'amour.

Through his passion 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.

And the cruel woman ordered that the Derevlian Kniaz's arms and legs be severed. For the rest of his life he was to stay under her table and gather the breadcrumbs with his tongue.

The people were less earnest than we, and might think less, but they all looked happy. Supposedly, dying is easier in the south.

I have repeatedly told you that suffering has a peculiar attraction for me. Nothing can intensify my passion more than tyranny, cruelty, and especially the faithlessness of a beautiful woman. And I cannot imagine this woman, this strange ideal derived from an aesthetics of ugliness, this soul of Nero in the body of a Phryne, except 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

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 Ã¢â'¬â€œ so who is the cruel one Ã¢â'¬â€œ the man or the woman?

But you cannot deny that man and woman, as much in your serene sunlit world as in our foggy one, are natural enemies and that Love unites them together for a short time which is capable only of one thought, feeling or will, only to split them apart even more and you know better than I, the one who does not know how to subjugate will quickly feel the foot of the other on his naked body

The more the woman shows herself submissive, the quicker the man becomes bored and overbearing; but the crueler and more faithless she is, the more she mistreats him, the more frivolously she plays with him and the less mercy she shows, the more she excites the lust of the man and is loved and worshiped by him. It was like that in all eras Ã¢â'¬â€œ from Helen and Delilah to Catherine the Great and Lola Montez

There is nothing that can excite the man more than the vision of a beautiful, passionate and cruel tyrant who changes her lovers arrogantly and without remorse

Let others lie to you, but no one manages to lie to himself.

You look at love Ã¢â'¬â€œ and above all women, as an enemy, something against which you feel you have to fight Ã¢â'¬â€œ even if it is in vain. You experience its power as a sort of sweet torment, a tingling cruelty-a truly modern view." "Which you don't share?" "Indeed I do not!

Should I belong to one man whom I do not love, only because I loved him once? No, I cannot renounce Ã¢â'¬â€œ I love him who pleases me and if he loves me, I make him happy. Is that so awful? It is at least much better than if I were to cruelly revel in the torments that my charms inspire and prudishly turn away from the one who is in love with me. I am young, beautiful and so I live happily for pleasure and desire.

but you want faithfulness without love from the woman and giving of herself without pleasure Ã¢â'¬â€œ so who is the cruel one Ã¢â'¬â€œ the man or the woman? In the north you take love too seriously. You speak of duty, where you should only talk of satisfaction.

I became so at ease with her that for one moment I forgot all etiquette

So I shall be honest Ã¢â'¬â€œ I don't think that I can love a man for longer than…" She mused as she leant her head charmingly to the side and considered. "One year?" I suggested. "What are you thinking of? Ã¢â'¬â€œ perhaps one month" "Even for me?" "No, for you… perhaps two." "Two months!" I gasped. "Two months is quite long

A woman's character is her lack of character.

We will live together sharing our way of life in order to see if we can live together. I shall grant you all your rights as a husband, a lover and a friend.

But you will only be mine under your conditions while I'll belong to you unconditionally

a man, no matter how selfish, how malevolent he may be, always follows principles, while a woman always follows only impulses. Never forget this and never feel safe with the woman you love.

And these six things: love, property, the state, war, work, and death, are the legacy of Cain, who slew his brother and whose brother's blood cried out to heaven, and the Lord spake to Cain: 'You shall be cursed upon the earth and a fugitive and a vagabond.' 

Watch out that you do not become a martyr to love, or even a martyr to a woman