Venus In Furs Quotes

You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood...

Love knows no virtue, no merit; it loves and forgives and tolerates everything because it must. We are not guided by reason...

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?

A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly.

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.

Desire followed the glance, pleasure followed desire

The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.

Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will paint her, and go mad.

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.

You are cold, while you yourself fan flames.

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

So,” Wanda cried, “a woman in furs is nothing more than a large cat, a charged electric battery?

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.

Why become well-versed in science and the arts if not to impress a lovely little woman?

My heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad.

You modern men, you children of reason, cannot begin to appreciate love as pure bliss and divine serenity.

The struggle of the spirit against the senses is the gospel of modern man. I do not wish to have any part in it.

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.

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.

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?

Above all else I am a dilettante in life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Well you know me – I am a woman of stone, your Venus in Furs, your ideal, so kneel and adore me.

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.

The real comic muse is the one underwhose laughing mask tears roll down.

Yes, I am cruel—since you take so much delight in that word-and am I not entitled to be so? 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.

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.

How beautiful you now are," she exclaimed, "your eyes half-broken in ecstacy fill me with joy, carry me away. How wonderful your look would be if you were being beaten to death, in the extreme agony. You have the eye of a martyr.

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

Las grandes pasiones parten de la antítesis.

Why not?" she said, "and take note of what I am about to say to you. Never feel secure with the woman you love, for there are more dangers in woman's nature than you imagine. Women are neither as good as their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as bad as their enemies make them out to be. Woman's character is characterlessness. The best woman will momentarily go down into the mire, and the worst unexpectedly rises to deeds of greatness and goodness and puts to shame those that despise her. No woman is so good or so bad, but that at any moment she is capable of the most diabolical as well as of the most divine, of the filthiest as well as of the purest, thoughts, emotions, and actions. In spite of all the advances of civilization, woman has remained as she came out of the hand of nature. She has the nature of a savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel, according to the impulse that dominates at the moment. Throughout history it has always been a serious deep culture which has produced moral character. Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never follows anything but impulses. Don't ever forget that, and never feel secure with the woman you love.

The more devoted a woman shows herself, the sooner the man sobers down and becomes domineering. 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 the more will she increase his desire, be loved, worshipped by him.

You mean you are now my slave without illusions, and for that reason you shall feel the weight of my foot without mercy.

But why talk in superlatives, as if something that is beautiful could be surpassed?

You are cold, while you yourself fan flames. By all means wrap yourself in your despotic furs, there is no one to whom they are more appropriate, cruel goddess of love and of beauty

You have taught me what love is. Your serene form of worship let me forget two thousand years.

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

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.

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.

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 work.

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.

Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers everything, because it must

Oh, you are the kind of man who will corrupt a woman to her very last fiber.

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.

You were careless enough to leave me the choice. I choose therefore that you shall be my slave, and I shall make a toy out of you.

The Plastic People of the Universe played 'Venus in Furs' from Velvet Underground, and I knew everything was basically okay.

Currently reading Venus In Furs by Sacher-Masoch, so... um... "God did punish him and deliver him into a woman's hands." Judith 16:7

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.

Vanda (as Dunayev): In our society, a woman's only power is through men. Her character is her lack of character. She's a blank, to be filled in my creatures who at heart despise her. I want to see what Woman will be when she ceases to be man's slave. When she has the same rights as he, when she's his equal in education and his partner in work. When she becomes herself. An individual.

reading the Odyssey about the beautiful witch who transformed her admirers into beasts. A wonderful picture of antique love.

I am never angry at anything that is natural—

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

I am much worse than a heretic – I am a pagan

If only I could give you my total soul in one kiss

There are always such people who begin everything but never finish, and I am such a one.

I feel sorry for him, but I do not love him. I love no one. I used to love you, as ardently, as passionately, as deeply as it was possible for me to love, but now I don't love even you any more; my heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad.

Vanda (as Dunayev): When she becomes herself--an individual. Thomas (as Kushemski): you only say that because you yourself are so individual. Vanda (as Dunayev): A man usually says that to a woman whose individuality he is about to undermine.

It is only man's egoism which 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.

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.

What you call cruel," the goddess of love replied eagerly, "is simply the element of passion and of natural love, which is woman's nature and makes her give herself where she loves, and makes her love everything, that pleases her.

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.

Thou supersensual sensual woer A woman leads you by the nose." —MEPHISTOPHELES.

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

if a woman wants to captivate a man forever she must, above all, be unfaithful to him.

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

Each one of us is in the end a Samson, and will finally be wounded by the woman he loves, whether she wears peasant dress or a fur pelt

Oh, you are the kind of man who will corrupt a woman to her very last fiber.

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.

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.

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.

Vanda (as Dunayev): I am a pagan. I am a Greek. I love the ancients not for their pediments or their poetry, but becausein their world Venus could love Paris one day and Anchises the next. Because they're not the moderns, who live in their mind, and because they're the opposite of Christians, who live on a cross. I don't live in my mind, or on a cross. I live on this divan. In this dress. In these stockings and these shoes. I want to live the way Helen and Aspasia lived, not the twisted women of today, who are never happy and never give happiness. Who won't admit that they want love without limit. Why should I forgo any possible pleasure, abstain from any sensual experience? I'm young, I'm rich, and I'm beautiful and I shall make the most of that. I shall deny myself nothing. Thomas (as Kushemski): I certainly respect your devotion to principle. Vanda (as Dunayev): I don't need your respect, excuse me. I'll take happiness. My happiness, not society's happiness. I will love a man who pleases me, and please a man who makes me happy--but only as long as he makes me happy, not a moment longer.

-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.

How handsome you 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.

El amor no conoce virtud ni mérito; ama, perdona y lo sufre todo, porque debe; nuestro juicio nada nos sirve para el amor; ni preferencias, ni defectos que descubrimos, provocan nuestra abnegación ni nos hacen retroceder asustados.

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.

Cuanto más fácilmente se entrega la mujer, más frío e imperioso es el hombre. Pero cuanto más cruel e infiel le es, cuanto más juega de una manera criminal, cuanta menos piedad le demuestra, más excita sus deseos, más la ama y la desea.

le langage de Sade est paradoxal parce qu’il est essentiellement celui d’une victime. Il n’y a que les victimes qui peuvent décrire les tortures, les bourreaux emploient nécessairement le langage hypocrite de l’ordre et du pouvoir établis

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.

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? In the north you take love too seriously. You speak of duty, where you should only talk of satisfaction.

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—

... that eternally restless, eternally unquenched desire for naked paganism, that love that is the supreme joy, that is divine serenity itself- those things are useless for you moderns, you children of reflection. That sort of love wreaks havoc on you. As soon as you wish to be natural you become normal. To you Nature seems hostile, you have turned us laughing Greek deities into demons and me into a devil. All you can do is exorcise me and curse me or else sacrifice yourselves, slaughter yourselves in bacchanalian madness at my alter. And if you ever has the courage to kiss my red lips, he then goes on a pilgrimage to Rome, barefoot and in a penitent's shirt, and expects flowers to blossom from his withered staff, while roses, violets, and myrtles sprout constantly under my feet- but their fragrance doesn't agree with you, So just stay in your northern fog and Christian incense. Let us pagans rest under the rubble, under lava. Do not dig us up. Pompeii, our villas, our baths, our temples were not built for you people! You need no gods! We freeze in your world!

Muž je tím žádajícím, žena tím žádoucím, to je ta celá, ale rozhodující výhoda ženy; příroda jí muže díky jeho vášni vydala na pospas, a žena, která si z něj neumí udělat svého poddaného, svého otroka, ba svou hračku a nakonen jej nedokáže se smíchem zradit, není chytrá.

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?

So I shall be honest – 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? – perhaps one month” “Even for me?” “No, for you… perhaps two.” “Two months!” I gasped. “Two months is quite long

Gracious, devilish, mythical lady. Put your foot upon your slave, Stretching out your marble body Under myrtles and agaves.

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.

You are a divine woman, but nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love.

There are people like that who begin everything, and never finish anything. I am such a one.

Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never follows anything but impulses.

Our nihilistic aesthetician is right when he says: a real apple is more beautiful than a painted one, and a living woman is more beautiful than a Venus of stone.

Your picture must live, even when you yourself have long fallen to dust; your beauty must triumph beyond death!

Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys does not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets death like a friend.

Each one of us in the end is a Samson," I thought, "and ultimately for better or worse is betrayed by the woman he loves, whether he wears an ordinary coat or sables.

To you nature seems something hostile; you have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a demon.

¿Te roba algo de tu alegría que yo haya pertenecido antes a otro y que otro me posea después de ti? ¿Será menor tu placer porque otro haya sido feliz como tú?

Déjese usted llevar por los impulsos de su naturaleza, pero nunca a medias. Si no puede usted ser una mujer buena y honrada, sea usted un demonio.

La mujer que no hace del hombre su súbdito, su esclavo, ¿qué digo?, su juguete, y que no le traiciona riendo, es una loca.

The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.

Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers everything, because it must.

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

A woman’s character is her lack of character.

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

For the time being there is only one alternative: to be the hammer or the anvil.

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

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

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.

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

You are the sort of man who could quite ruin a woman

I’m telling you: never feel secure with a woman whom you love as the nature of a woman hides more dangers than you think

The hand of an artist should rescue you – you should not be submerged like all the rest of us and forever, without leaving a trace of your existence behind

I love no-one. I did love you, so deeply and passionately – as deep as I could love anyone, but now I do not even love you. My heart is empty and dead, and that saddens

Before you, that another will possess me after you and would you enjoy it the less if another was happy at the same time as you?

Does it diminish your joy that I have belonged to another

To me, this is a play about two people who are joined irreparably. They're handcuffed at the heart.

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.

one is either very polite to one's self or very rude. I say to myself: "Donkey!" This word exercises a remarkable effect, like a magic formula, which sets me free and makes me master of myself.

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 blows, as you see, have agreed with me; the roseate supersensual mist has dissolved, and no one can ever make me believe that these 'sacred apes of Benares' or Plato's rooster are the image of God

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 – from Helen and Delilah to Catherine the Great and Lola Montez

All of a sudden I saw with horrible clarity whither blind passion and lust have led man, ever since Holofernes and Agamemnon—into a blind alley, into the net of woman's treachery, into misery, slavery, and death.

...'I cannot deny,' I said, 'that 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—'...

However, it is well to remember that nature is neither good nor bad, neither altruistic nor egoistic, and that it operates through the human psyche as well as through crystals and plants and animals with the same inexorable laws.

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.

What you call ‘cruel,’” the Goddess of Love vividly retorted, “is precisely the element of sensuality and cheerful love—which is a woman’s nature. She must give herself to whatever or whomever she loves and must love anything that pleases her.

People who want to live like the gods of Olympus must of necessity have slaves whom they can toss into their fish- ponds, and gladiators who will do battle, the while they banquet, and they must not mind if by chance a bit of blood bespatters them.

I can imagine myself quite well belonging to one man for life, but it must be a complete man, who impresses me and who subjugates me through the power of his existence – do you understand? But I know that every man becomes weak and malleable as soon as he falls in love. He becomes ridiculous, giving himself up to a woman, kneeling in front of her, but I could only permanently love one who could cause me to kneel in front of him. However, as you have become dear to me I am willing to give it a try.

Never feel secure with the woman you love, for there are more dangers in woman's nature than you imagine. Women are neither as good as their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as bad as their enemies make them out to be. Woman's character is characterlessness.

You look at love – and above all women, as an enemy, something against which you feel you have to fight – 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!

I felt there was something sacred in sex; in fact, it was the only sacred thing. In woman and her beauty I saw something divine, because the most important function of existence--the continuation of the species--is her vocation. To me woman represented a personification of nature, _Isis_, and man was her priest, her slave. In contrast to him she was cruel like nature herself who tosses aside whatever has served her purposes as soon as she no longer has need for it. To him her cruelties, even death itself, still were sensual raptures.

But the moral?’ ‘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 work.

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?

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.

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.

Il est bien vrai que la violence est ce qui ne parle pas, ce qui parle peu, et la sexualité, ce dont on parle peu, en principe. La pudeur n’est pas liée à un effroi biologique. Si elle l’était, elle ne se formulerait pas comme elle le fait : je redoute moins d’être touchée que vue, et vue que parlée.

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.

Plus la femme se montre soumise, plus vite l’homme retrouve son sang froid et devient dominateur, mais plus elle est cruelle et se montre infidèle, plus elle le maltraite, plus elle joue follement avec lui, moins elle s’attendrit, et plus alors elle aiguise la volupté de l’homme, plus elle est aimée et adorés.

This is the reason why 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, these adorable, scintillating electric batteries have been the favorite animal of a Mahommed, Cardinal Richelieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland.

Am I mad or is she? Does all this arise out of an inventive, wanton woman's brain with the intention of surpassing my supersensual fantasies, or is this woman really one of those Neronian characters who take a diabolical pleasure in treading underfoot, like a worm, human beings, who have thoughts and feelings and a will like theirs?

There is no equality in love," I replied solemnly. "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. But where shall I find the woman who knows how to rule, calmly, full of self-confidence, even harshly, and not seek to gain her power by means of petty nagging?

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

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—

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.

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

But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of others; he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others to his carriage or his plough as though they were animals. He must know how to make slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does, and use them for his service and pleasure without remorse.

The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman. This sentence strangely impressed me. How ungallant these Jews are, I thought. And their God might choose more becoming expressions when he speaks of the fair sex. "The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman," I repeated to myself. What shall I do, so that He may punish me?

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?

Should I belong to one man whom I do not love, only because I loved him once? No, I cannot renounce – 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.

Love knows neither virtue nor merit; when we love, we forgive and forget everything, for we have no choice. It is not our judgement that leads us, it is not the qualities or faults that we discover in the loved one that inflame our passion and cause us to draw back in horror. We are driven by a gentle and mysterious power that deprives us of all will and reason and we are swept along with no thought for the morrow.

Sade, au moins, n’a pas montré le vice agréable ou riant : il l’a montré apathique. Et sans doute, de cette apathie découle un plaisir intense ; mais à la limite, ce n’est plus le plaisir d’un Moi qui participe à la nature seconde (fût-ce un moi criminel participant à une nature criminelle), c’est au contraire le plaisir de nier la nature en moi et hors de moi, et de nier le Moi lui-même. En un mot, c’est un plaisir de démonstration.

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, than if cruelly I enjoy the tortures, which my beauty excites, and virtuously reject the poor fellow who is pining away for me. I am young, rich, and beautiful, and I live serenely for the sake of pleasure and enjoyment.

I realize that dangerous faculties lie dormant in me,' said Wanda after we walked a few steps. 'You're awakening them and not to your advantage. You know how to depict pleasure, cruelty, and wantonness in such tempting colors- what would you say if I tried my hand at it and started with you, like the tyrant Dionysus, who broiled the inventor of the iron bull in his own invention in order to see whether his wailing, his death rattle actually sounded like the bellowing of a bull. Might I be a female Dionysus?

I was all night long in the antechamber, in a state of feverish delirium. Strange visions pass before my eyes. I see their meeting, their first lingering exchange of glances; I see her whirling through the ballroom in his arms, giddy, resting with half-closed eyes against his breast; I see him in all the sanctity of love, not as a slave but as a lord, lying on the ottoman with her at his feet; I see myself kneeling before him, waiting on him, the tea tray trembling in my hands; I see him reach for the whip.

¿Encontraré una mujer que, fiel y benévola, comparta mi suerte brillante y generosa, cuando ahora quien la comparte sólo lo hace de una manera blanda o tímida? Entonces prefiero caer entre las manos de una mujer sin virtud, inconstante y despiadada. En su inmenso egoísmo, esa mujer es todavía un ideal. Si es que no puedo gozar plena y enteramente la dicha del amor, necesito apurar la copa de los sufrimientos y de las torturas, ser maltratado y engañado por la mujer amada, cuanto más cruelmente, mejor. ¡Es un verdadero goce!

C’est pourquoi aussi le masochiste élabore des contrats, tandis que le sadique abomine et déchire tout contrat. Le sadique a besoin d’institutions, mais le masochiste, de relations contractuelles. Le Moyen Âge, avec profondeur, distinguait deux sortes de diabolisme, ou deux perversions fondamentales : l’une par possession, l’autre par pacte d’alliance. C’est le sadique qui pense en termes de possession instituée, et le masochiste en termes d’alliance contractée. La possession est la folie propre du sadisme, le pacte celle du masochisme.

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.

The gestures of models (mannequins) and mythological figures. The romantic use of nature (leaves, trees, water) to create a place where innocence can be refound. The exotic and nostalgic attraction of the Mediterranean. The poses taken up to denote stereotypes of women: serene mother (madonna), free-wheeling secretary (actress, king’s mistress), perfect hostess (spectator-owner’s wife), sex-object (Venus, nymph surprised), etc. The special sexual emphasis given to women’s legs. The materials particularly used to indicate luxury: engraved metal, furs, polished leather, etc. The gestures and embraces of lovers, arranged frontally for the benefit of the spectator. The sea, offering a new life. The physical stance of men conveying wealth and virility. The treatment of distance by perspective – offering mystery. The equation of drinking and success. The man as knight (horseman) become motorist. Why does publicity depend so heavily upon the visual language of oil painting? Publicity is the culture of the consumer society. It propagates through images that society’s belief in itself. There are several reasons why these images use the language of oil painting. Oil painting, before it was anything else, was a celebration of private property. As an art-form it derived from the principle that you are what you have.

Dans les Cent Vingt Journées, le libertin se déclare excité non par les « objets qui sont ici », mais par l’Objet qui n’est pas là, c’est-à-dire l’« idée du mal ». Or cette idée de ce qui n’est pas, cette idée du Non ou de la négation, qui n’est pas donnée ni donnable dans l’expérience, ne peut être qu’objet de démonstration (au sens où le mathématicien parle de vérités qui gardent tout leur sens même si nous dormons, et même si elles n’existent pas dans la nature). C’est pourquoi aussi les héros sadiques désespèrent et enragent de voir leurs crimes réels si minces par rapport à cette idée qu’ils ne peuvent atteindre que par la toute-puissance du raisonnement. Ils rêvent d’un crime universel et impersonnel

Una hermosa mujer con una risa radiante que la alumbraba el rostro, de opulenta cabellera trenzada en nudos antiguos, en la cual el polvo blanco aparecía como una escarcha ligera, descansaba la cabeza sobre el brazo izquierdo, desnuda entre una oscura pelliza. Su mano derecha jugaba con una fusta, y su pie, desnudo, reposaba descuidado sobre un hombre, tendido ante ella como un esclavo o un perro; y este hombre, de rasgos acentuados, pero de buen dibujo, en los que se leía una profunda tristeza y una devoción apasionada, alzaba hacia ella los ojos de un mártir, exaltado y ardiente. El hombre, taburete vivo bajo los pies de la mujer, no era otro que Severino, pero sin barba, con lo que parecía tener diez años menos.

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.

The first psychiatrist to look closely at the more extreme forms of sadistic behavior was the eminent German physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Besides coining the term “masochism” (named after the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose famous novel, Venus in Furs, deals with a man who craves humiliation), Krafft-Ebing made a major contribution to the literature of morbid psychology with his classic book, Psychopathia Sexualis—a massive compendium of every known perversion, illustrated with hundreds of detailed case histories. At the time of its initial publication in 1886, the book was considered so shocking that its author was nearly expelled from the prestigious British Medico-Psychological Association. Even today, it makes for deeply disturbing reading. Still, it is a significant work, one that clearly demonstrates there’s nothing new about serial murder. Of course, Krafft-Ebing doesn’t use the term “serial murder,” which wouldn’t enter the language for another hundred years. The term he uses is the German word lustmord or “lust-murder.” The essence of this crime is extreme sadistic violence against the victim. The lust-murderer doesn’t just kill his victims. His ultimate pleasure comes from savaging their bodies: disemboweling them, cutting out their genitals, etc. For such blood-crazed sadists, violence is a substitute for sex.

I'll take happiness. My happiness, not society's happiness. I will love a man who pleases me, and please a man who makes me happy—but only as long as he makes me happy, not a moment longer.

I am tired, I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years, a thousand dreams that would awake me. Different colors made of tears. The Velvet Underground, from “Venus In Furs," The Velvet Underground & Nico. Produced by Andy Warhol (Verve, 1967)

Haven’t I always been honest with you? Haven’t I warned you more than once? Didn’t I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be dominated? —LEOPOLD VON SACHER-MASOCH, Venus in Furs

A spurious sense of tragedy dulls our intelligence; how many authors are distorted by placing a childishly tragic construction on what is more often the expression of an aggressively comic force! The comic is the only possible mode of conceiving the law, in a peculiar combination of irony and humor.

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.

It is sufficient to say that this Venus is beautiful. 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. I literally adore her. I often lie reading under the leafy covering of a young birch when the sun broods over the forest. often I visit that cold, cruel mistress of mine by night and lie on my knees before her, with the face pressed against the cold pedestal on which her feet rest, and my prayers go up to her.

And yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the nudity of paganism,” she interrupted, “but 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. Pompeii was not built for you, nor our villas, our baths, our temples. You do not require gods. We are chilled in your world.