Quotes from Venus In Furs

Some quotes from my reading:

"I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love."

"Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. 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."

"The more cruelly she treats him and the more faithless she is, the worse she uses him, the more wantonly she plays with him, the less pity she shows him, by so much more will she increase his desire, be loved, worshipped by him."

"nothing will attract a man more than the picture of a beautiful, passionate, cruel, and despotic woman who wantonly changes her favorites without scruple in accordance with her whim-"

"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. As soon as he gives in, his neck is under the yoke, and the lash will soon fall upon him."

"In nature there is only the love of the heroic age, 'when gods and goddesses loved.' At that time 'desire followed the glance, enjoyment desire.' All else is factitious, affected, a lie."

"pick out an attractive lover, or preferably several. You are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you need toys."

"There is no equality in love... Whenever it is a matter of choice for me of ruling or being ruled, it seems much more satisfactory to me to be the slave of a beautiful woman."

"I would rather be subject to a woman without virtue, fidelity, or pity. Such a woman in her magnificent selfishness is likewise an ideal."

"I want to taste its pains and torments to the very dregs; I want to be maltreated and betrayed by the woman I love, and the more cruelly the better. This too is a luxury."

-Leopold von Sascher-Masoch