Giacomo Casanova Quotes

Enjoy the present, bid defiance to the future, laugh at all those reasonable beings who exercise their reason to avoid the misfortunes which they fear, destroying at the same time the pleasure that they might enjoy.

By recollecting the pleasures I have had formerly, I renew them, I enjoy them a second time, while I laugh at the remembrance of troubles now past, and which I no longer feel.

The mind of a human being is formed only of comparisons made in order to examine analogies, and therefore cannot precede the existence of memory.

The thing is to dazzle

The reader of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system, has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting to the wind wherever it led.

It is only necessary to have courage, for strength without self-confidence is useless.

Marriage is the tomb of love.

As to the deceit perpetrated upon women, let it pass, for, when love is in the way, men and women as a general rule dupe each other.

The source of love, as I learned later, is a curiosity which, combined with the inclination which nature is obliged to give us in order to preserve itself. […] Hence women make no mistake in taking such pains over their person and their clothing, for it is only by these that they can arouse a curiosity to read them in those whom nature at their birth declared worthy of something better than blindness. […] As time goes on a man who has loved many women, all of them beautiful, reaches the point of feeling curious about ugly women if they are new to him. He sees a painted woman. The paint is obvious to him, but it does not put him off. His passion, which has become a vice, is ready with the fraudulent title page. 'It is quite possible,' he tells himself, 'that the book is not as bad as all that; indeed, it may have no need of this absurd artifice.' He decides to scan it, he tries to turn over the pages - but no! the living book objects; it insists on being read properly, and the 'egnomaniac' becomes a victim of coquetry, the monstrous persecutor of all men who ply the trade of love.

You, Sir, who are a man of intelligence and have read these least twenty lines, which Apollo drew from my pen, permit me to tell you that if they fail to disillusion you, you are lost - that is, you will be the victim of the fair sex to the last moment of your life. If that prospect pleases you, I congratulate you

The raging fire which urged us on was scorching us; it would have burned us had we failed to restrain it.

Desires are but pain and torment, and enjoyment is sweet because it delivers us from them.

[W]e avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and the victory is worth the trouble[.

A man who makes known his love by words is a fool.

Beauty without wit offers nothing but the enjoyment of its material charms, whilst witty ugliness captivates by the charms of the mind, and at last fulfils all the desires of the man it has captivated.

I am bound to add that the excess in too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in too much; the last may cause indigestion, but the first causes death.

If I had married a woman intelligent enough to guide me, to rule me without my feeling that I was ruled, I should have taken good care of my money, I should have had children, and I should not be, as now I am, alone in the world and possessing nothing.

The man who seeks to educate himself must first read and then travel in order to correct what he has learned.

When a sonnet is mediocre it is bad, for it should be sublime.

If you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write something worthy of being read.

I have often met with happiness after some imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his mercy.

The story she had told me was possible, but it was not believable.

Youth runs away from old age, because it is its most cruel enemy

Whether it is happy or unhappy, a man's life is the only treasure he can ever possess.

I learned very early that our health is always impaired by some excess either of food or abstinence, and I never had any physician except myself.

I cannot think without a shudder of contracting any obligation towards death. I hate death; for, happy or miserable, life is the only blessing which man possesses, and those who do not love it are unworthy of it.

The man who forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance; forgiveness is the offspring of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness.

Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.

I know that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence, I know likewise that I shall exist no more when I shall have ceased to feel.

The same principle that forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth.

[Matrimony] is the grave of love.

Should I perchance still feel after my death, I would no longer have any doubt, but I would most certainly give the lie to anyone asserting before me that I was dead.

I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I found it necessary ... We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and ... deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man. What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself when I am in their company.

Feeling that I was born for the opposite sex, I have always loved it, and I have done everything I could to make myself beloved by it.

If you want to make people laugh, your face must remain serious.

To Kiss : An attempt to absorb the essence of the other person.

I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent.

The sweetest pleasures are those which are hardest to be won.

I always made my food congenial to my constitution, and my health was always excellent.

We love without heeding reason, and cease to love in the same manner.

Death is a monster that chases the rapt spectator from the theater before the play he is watching with infinite interest has ended.

I saw that everything famous and beautiful in the world, if we judge by the descriptions and drawings of writers and artists, always loses when we go to see it and examine it closely.

Lies, truth, loveI have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of introducing it into the minds which were ignorant of it's charms.

THE MAN WHO MAKES NO MISTAKES USUALLY MAKES NOTHING

Love becomes imprudent only when it is impatient to enjoy; but when it is a matter of procuring the return of a happiness to which a baleful combination of circumstances has raised impediments, love sees and foresees all that the most subtle perspicacity can discover.

The pleasure I gave my lovers was a four fifth of the pleasure I experienced.

Thence, I suppose, my natural disposition to make fresh acquaintances, and to break with them so readily, although always for a good reason, and never through mere fickleness.

I have met with some of them - very honest fellows, who, with all their stupidity, had a kind of intelligence and an upright good sense, which cannot be the characteristics of fools.

Praise the beautiful for their intelligence and the intelligent for their beauty.

Hope is nothing but a deceitful flatterer accepted by reason only because it is often in need of palliatives.

Here it is. You assume that I am rich; I am not. I shall have nothing once I have emptied my purse. You perhaps suppose that I am a man of high birth, and I am of a rank either lower than your own or equal to it. I have no talent which can earn money, no employment, no reason to be sure that I shall have anything to eat a few months hence. I have neither relatives nor friends nor rightful claims nor any settled plan. In short, all that I have is youth, health, courage, a modicum of intelligence, a sense of honor and of decency, with a little reading and the bare beginnings of a career in literature. My great treasure is that I am my own master, that I am not dependent upon anyone, and that I am not afraid of misfortunes. My nature tends toward extravagance. Such is the man I am. Now answer me, my beautiful Teresa.

The philosopher is a person who refuses no pleasures which do not produce greater sorrows, and who knows how to create new ones.

Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion.

[H]appy or miserable, life is the only blessing which man possesses[.

Cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life; I have never found any occupation more important. Feeling that I was born for the sex opposite mine, I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it. I have also been extravagantly fond of good food and irresistibly drawn by anything which could excite curiosity.

Happiness is gained by complying with the duties of whatever condition of life one is in, and you must constrain yourself to rise to that exalted station in which destiny has placed you.

After all, a beautiful woman without a mind of her own leaves her lover with no resource after he had physically enjoyed her charms.

You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.

My success and my misfortunes, the bright and the dark days I have gone through, everything has proved to me that in this world, either physical or moral, good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes out of good.

If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.

Be the flame, not the moth.

Since, though I do not repent my amorous exploits, I am far from wanting my example to contribute to the corruption of the fair sex, which deserves our homage for so many reasons, I hope that my observations will foster prudence in fathers and mothers and thus at least deserve their esteem.

Love is only a feeling of curiousity more or less intense, grafted upon the inclination placed in us by nature that the species may be preserved.

I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding.

Those who do not love life do not deserve it.

It is shallow desires which make a young man bold; strong desires confound him.

Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.

one who makes no mistakes makes nothing

The longer you remain in Rome,' said [Cardinal] S.C., 'the smaller you will find it.

God ceases to be God only for those who can admit the possibility of His non-existence, and that conception is in itself the most severe punishment they can suffer.

The spirit of rebellion is present in every great city, and the great task of wise government is to keep it dormant, for if it wakes it is a torrent which no dam can hold back.

For my future I have no concern, and as a true philosopher, I never would have any, for I know not what it may be: as a Christian, on the other hand, faith must believe without discussion, and the stronger it is, the more it keeps silent.

As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore, I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher.

My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it.

I loved, I was loved, my health was good, I had a great deal of money, and I spent it, I was happy and I confessed it to myself.

When you fool a fool you strike a blow for intelligence.

There is no such thing as a perfectly happy or perfectly unhappy man in the world. One has more happiness in his life and another more unhappiness, and the same circumstance may produce widely different effects on individuals of different temperaments.

I have had friends who have acted kindly towards me, and it has been my good fortune to have it in my power to give them substantial proofs of my gratitude.

Give me a man who is man enough to give himself just to the woman who is worth him. If that woman were me,I would love him alone and forever

If you refuse me, I shall be compelled to believe that you are cruelly enjoying my misery, and that you have learned in the most accursed school that the best way of preventing a young man from curing himself of an amorous passion is to excite it constantly; but you must agree with me that, to put such tyranny in practice, it is necessary to hate the person it is practised upon, and, if that be so, I ought to call upon my reason to give me the strength necessary to hate you likewise.

The history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which my memory can evoke; it will therefore commence when I had attained the age of eight years and four months.

Man is free; but not unless he believes he is[.]

My great treasure is that I am my own master, that I am not dependent upon anyone, and that I am not afraid of misfortunes.