Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova

Marriage is the tomb of love.

— Giacomo Casanova

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.

— Giacomo Casanova

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.

— Giacomo Casanova

Great God, and you witnesses of my death, I have lived as a philosopher, and I die as a Christian.

— Giacomo Casanova

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.

— Giacomo Casanova

Man is free, but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it; and the greater power he ascribes to faith, the more he deprives himself of that power which God has given to him when He endowed him with the gift of reason. Reason is a particle of the Creator's divinity. When we use it with a spirit of humility and justice we are certain to please the Giver of that precious gift.

— Giacomo Casanova

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. 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.

— Giacomo Casanova

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. How many changes arise from such an independent mode of life!

— Giacomo Casanova

I have written the history of my life, and I have a perfect right to do so; but am I wise in throwing it before a public of which I know nothing but evil? No, I am aware it is sheer folly, but I want to be busy, I want to laugh, and why should I deny myself this gratification?

— Giacomo Casanova

The chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses; I never knew anything of greater importance. I felt myself born for the fair sex, I have ever loved it dearly, and I have been loved by it as often and as much as I could.

— Giacomo Casanova

The man who forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance of the harm inflicted on him; forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom.

— Giacomo Casanova

Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.

— Giacomo Casanova

One of the advantages of a great sorrow is that nothing else seems painful.

— Giacomo Casanova

Nothing is so catching as the plague; now, fanaticism, no matter of what nature, is only the plague of the human mind.

— Giacomo Casanova

Economy in pleasure is not to my taste.

— Giacomo Casanova

Learn from me that a wise man who has heard a criminal accusation related with so many absurd particulars ceases to be wise when he makes himself the echo of what he has heard, for if the accusation should turn out to be a calumny, he would himself become the accomplice of the slanderer.

— Giacomo Casanova

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.

— Giacomo Casanova

I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of first introducing it into minds which were ignorant of its charms.

— Giacomo Casanova

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.

— Giacomo Casanova

[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.

— Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova

Man is free, but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it[.]

— Giacomo Casanova

[Marriage] is the tomb of love.

— Giacomo Casanova

[Matrimony] is the grave of love.

— Giacomo Casanova

[T]hey who do not love [life] do not deserve it.

— Giacomo Casanova

[T]hose who do not love [life] are unworthy of it.

— Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova

We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised[.]

— Giacomo Casanova

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.

— Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova

Happy or unhappy, life is the only treasure which man possesses[.]

— Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova

This extremely interesting girl, after giving me a single glance from her beautiful eyes, stubbornly refused to look at me again. My vanity at once made me think that it was only so that I would be at full liberty to study her impeccable beauty. It was on this girl that I instantly set my sights, as if all Europe were only a seraglio provided for my pleasures.

— Giacomo Casanova

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

— Giacomo Casanova