Quotes from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“...but we no more choose our passions than our features or complexion.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Em resumo, há nos homens, quando eles se deixam guiar pelos olhos, uma tal credulidade da qual sua majestosa sabedoria não suspeita, fazendo que os mais avisados dentre eles sejam frequentemente enganados por nós.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“(...) o conhecimento e a comunicação com os maus elementos do nosso próprio sexo é muitas vezes tão fatal para a inocência quanto todas as seduções do outro.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“(...) rapidamente cheguei à resolução de me lançar no vasto mundo, dirigindo-me a Londres para ir em busca de minha fortuna, uma frase que, parece, tem arruinado mais aventureiros de ambos os sexos saídos do campo do que levado a sua realização.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Isto é, creio, demasiado elogio próprio; mas não seria eu ingrata com a natureza, e para com uma figura a que devo as bênçãos ímpares do prazer e da fortuna, se suprimisse, presa de uma modéstia afetada, a descrição de dons tão valiosos.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Não!, nem o passar dos anos, nem as voltas do destino poderiam apagar a impressão fulminante que ele causou em mim... Sim! querido objeto de minha primeira paixão, guardarei para sempre a lembrança de tua primeira aparição diante de meus olhos embevecidos... ela te traz de volta ao presente, e eu te vejo diante de mim!”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Sobre a mesa ainda se viam a poncheira e as taças, espalhadas na desordem costumeira após a debandada dos ébrios.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Tudo isso formava o mais interessante quadro vivo da natureza, certamente muito superior aos nus criados pelos pintores, escultores ou quaisquer artistas, e que se compram a preços altíssimos; no entanto, tais visões são apreciadas soberanamente apenas por algumas pessoas que a natureza dotou do fogo da imaginação, e que são calorosamente dirigidas por um julgamento verdadeiro para as fontes, os originais da beleza, as criações inigualáveis da natureza, que estão bem acima das imitações da arte ou das possibilidades da riqueza de pagar-lhes o preço.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“(...) os infelizes jamais morrem, quando a morte seria o melhor remédio para seus males, e a vida das mulheres é proverbialmente dura.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Aqui, minha senhora, devo talvez desculpar-me pela descrição minuciosa de coisas que persistem com tanta força em minha memória, pela impressão que causaram; mas, além de esse fato ter provocado uma revolução em minha vida, a verdade histórica exige que eu não vos esconda que um prazer tão exaltante não pode ser ingratamente esquecido ou suprimido sob o pretexto de que eu o tenha encontrado num ser de condição inferior; pelo contrário, é aí que encontramos mais pureza, maior ausência de sofisticação, e não em meio aos refinamentos falsos e ridículos graças aos quais os grandes aceitam ser grosseiramente enganados por seu orgulho. Os grandes! Existem, entre os que eles chamam de vulgares, pessoas mais ignorantes e que cultivem menos a arte de viver do que eles próprios? Ao contrário, os simples ignoram sempre as coisas estranhas à natureza do prazer; seu objetivo principal é gozar a beleza onde se possa encontrar esse dom inestimável, sem distinção de berço ou posição.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Os homens, de modo geral, não sabem o quanto destroem seu próprio prazer quando esquecem o respeito e o carinho devidos a nosso sexo, mesmo aquelas que vivem apenas para agradar-lhes.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“Era um desses instrumentos de bom tamanho, que seus proprietários governam melhor do que aqueles pesadões e excessivos.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“(...) pois nas mulheres, e em particular nas do nosso tipo, por melhor que seja a disposição dos nossos corações, há sempre uma parte rainha que se autogoverna e que tem suas próprias razões de Estado, e dentre estas a mais forte é a que manda jamais se confundir a vontade com o ato.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“O vencedor logo estaria à mercê, pois, com a luta cada vez mais ardente, chegava para ele o instante de pagar sua dívida ao prazer.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“O amor, presidindo a ação, insinuava o prazer e o gozo. E confesso, de bom grado, que me persuadi sem dificuldade de que, sem amor, o prazer, por maior e mais perfeito que seja, fica vulgar, sejamos rei ou vagabundo.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“I had now totally taken in love's true arrow from the point up to the feather . . . .”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

“and measured me very rightly in her manner of whistling to me, so as to make me pleased with my cage, and blind to the wires.”
― John Cleland, quote from Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

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“Dear Oscar

I don’t know how to say this any other way but, you see, I need to explain something. I can’t stop thinking about that night when you rescued Barney with you tart – and how good and kind I realise you’ve always been. It wasn’t until this morning when you sent me an apple tart of my own that I finally knew what it is that I have to tell you.
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“Think of cocaine. In its natural form, as coca leaves, it's appealing, but not to an extent that it usually becomes a problem. But refine it, purify it, and you get a compound that hits your pleasure receptors with an unnatural intensity. That's when it becomes addictive.

Beauty has undergone a similar process, thanks to advertisers. Evolution gave us a circuit that responds to good looks - call it the pleasure receptor for our visual cortex - and in our natural environment, it was useful to have. But take a person with one-in-a-million skin and bone structure, add professional makeup and retouching, and you're no longer looking at beauty in its natural form. You've got pharmaceutical-grade beauty, the cocaine of good looks.

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