Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing

“I have fooled life and life has fooled me. We are quits. I say good-bye. Think sometimes in the hour of happiness of your poor, comical fool who loved you truly and so well.”

“All my joys resemble more a momentary intoxication than the real gold of happiness. It was all but an illusion.”

“Nature has made a mistake in the choice of my sexuality and I must do a life-long penance for it, for the moral power to suffer the unavoidable with dignity is lost.”

“All our hope rests upon the possibility of a change of the laws which concern it, so that only rape or the comission of public offence, when this can be proved at the same time, shall be punishable.”

“I have also fantasised myself to be his female slave, but this does not suffice, for after all every woman can be the slave of her husband.”

“He soon recognized the fact that the stimulus proceeded from the idea to be in the power of a woman rather than from the act of violence itself.”

“There are men who have themselves whipped simply to increase their sexual pleasure. These, in contrast with true masochists, regard flagellation as a means to an end.”

“The thought of a comedy with paid prostitutes always seemed so silly and purposeless, for a person hired by me could never take the place of my imagination of a 'cruel mistress'.”