“Man enjoys the happiness he feels, woman the happiness she gives. This difference, so essential and yet so seldom noticed, has a marked difference on the whole of their respective behaviour. A man's pleasure is to satisfy desires, a woman's is chiefly to arouse them.”

L’homme jouit du bonheur qu’il ressent, et la femme de celui qu’elle procure. Cette différence, si essentielle et si peu remarquée, influe pourtant, d'une manière bien sensible, sur la totalité de leur conduite respective. Le plaisir de l’un est de satisfaire des désirs, celui de l’autre est surtout de les faire naître.
Letter 130: Madame de Rosemonde to Madame la Présidente Tourvel. Trans. Richard Aldington (1924). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Lettre_130
Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)

Original

L’homme jouit du bonheur qu’il ressent, et la femme de celui qu’elle procure. Cette différence, si essentielle et si peu remarquée, influe pourtant, d'une manière bien sensible, sur la totalité de leur conduite respective. Le plaisir de l’un est de satisfaire des désirs, celui de l’autre est surtout de les faire naître.

Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)

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Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 16
French novelist, official and army general 1741–1803

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