Giacomo Casanova Quotes

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

one who makes no mistakes makes nothing

Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy.

Be the flame, not the moth.

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

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.

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

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

Love is three quarters curiosity.

Nobody can deprive me of the fact that I had a good time.

Love is a great poet, its resources are inexhaustible, but if the end it has in view is not obtained, it feels weary and remains silent.

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

I have always had such sincere love for truth, that I have often begun by telling stories for the purpose of getting truth to enter the heads of those who could not appreciate its charms.

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

There is no honest woman with an uncorrupted heart whom a man is not sure of conquering by dint of gratitude. It is one of the surest and shortest means.

[Matrimony] is the grave of love.

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

[Malipiero's advice to Casanova.] If you wish your audience to cry, you must shed tears yourself, but if you wish to make them laugh you must contrive to look as serious as a judge.

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

I 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 its charms.

There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our lives.

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

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

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.

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.

I don't conquer, I submit.

In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man.

We ourselve are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Those who do not love life do not deserve it.

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.

Marriage is the tomb of love.

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.

The man who has sufficient power over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance is the truly wise man, but such beings are seldom met with.

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

Man is a free agent; but he is not free if he does not believe it.

I leave to others the decision as to the good or evil tendencies of my character, but such as it is it shines upon my countenance, and there it can easily be detected by any physiognomist.

Cheating is a sin, but honest cunning is simply prudence. It is a virtue. To be sure, it has a likeness to roguery, but that cannot be helped. He who has not learned to practice it is a fool.

When a man gets it into his head to do something, and when he exclusively occupies himself in that design, he must succeed, whatever the difficulties. That man will become Grand Vizier or Pope.

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

In the mean time I worship God, laying every wrong action under an interdict which I endeavour to respect, and I loathe the wicked without doing them any injury.

I know that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence.

When a man is in love very little is enough to throw him into despair and as little to enhance his joy to the utmost.

Whether happy or unhappy, life is the only treasure man possesses.