87 Quotes by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Everything was silent. Only man was awake in his misery, laboring in the sweat of his brow for the sake of this absurd existence that he passionately loves and despises in equal measure.

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.

When parents, in the belief that they are doing the right thing, trample underfoot some ideal that lies latent in the heart of their child they cause, more often than not, to germinate in its place disillusionment, hatred, vice; it is fortunate indeed if the existence thus turned awry does not degrade into a life of crime, instead of one of calm content and universal respect.

The Baron had become her slave: whatever she demanded of him he carried out with pleasure. When her humour so decreed, he would lie at her feet like a slave..., like a dog!

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.

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.

You are cold, while you yourself fan flames.

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.

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.