Giacomo Casanova
There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our lives.Collection: Destiny
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.Collection: Gratitude
When you fool a fool you strike a blow for intelligence.Collection: Blow
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.Collection: Cheating
Desires are but pain and torment, and enjoyment is sweet because it delivers us from them.Collection: Sweet
We love without heeding reason, and cease to love in the same manner.Collection: Reason
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.Collection: Intelligent
If you want to make people laugh, your face must remain serious.Collection: Laughter
I found that the writer who says SUBLATA LUCERNA NULLUM DISCRIMEN INTER MULIERES ('when the lamp is taken away, all women are alike') says true; but without love, this great business is a vile thing.Collection: Taken
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.Collection: Beautiful
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.Collection: Mother
Man is free; but not unless he believes he is[.]Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Wise
The story she had told me was possible, but it was not believable.Collection: Stories
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.Collection: Deals
[H]appy or miserable, life is the only blessing which man possesses[.Collection: Blessing
I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian.Collection: Christian
Man is free, but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it[.Collection: Men
They are the follies inherent to youth; I make sport of them, and, if you are kind, you will not yourself refuse them a good-natured smile.Collection: Sports
We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and the victory is worth the troubleCollection: Victory
Happy are those lovers who, when their senses require rest, can fall back upon the intellectual enjoyments afforded by the mind! Sweet sleep then comes, and lasts until the body has recovered its general harmony. On awaking, the senses are again active and always ready to resume their action.Collection: Sweet
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 foreverCollection: Men
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.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Inspirational
If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.Collection: Writing
The same principle that forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth.Collection: Lying
The pleasure I gave my lovers was a four fifth of the pleasure I experienced.Collection: Four
Hope is nothing but a deceitful flatterer accepted by reason only because it is often in need of palliatives.Collection: Needs
[Matrimony] is the grave of love.Collection: Graves
We ourselve are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.Collection: Grief
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.Collection: Exercise
I know that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence.Collection: Being Alone
Those who do not love life do not deserve it.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Love
economy spoils pleasureCollection: Pleasure
I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Memories
When a sonnet is mediocre it is bad, for it should be sublime.Collection: Sublime
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Memories
[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.Collection: Laughing
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.Collection: Love Is
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.Collection: Believe
Man is a free agent; but he is not free if he does not believe it.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Appreciate
The philosopher is a person who refuses no pleasures which do not produce greater sorrows, and who knows how to create new ones.Collection: Sorrow
To lead a blameless life you must curb your passions , and whatever misfortune may befall you cannot be ascribed by anyone to want of good luck, or attributed to fate; these words are devoid of sense, and all fault will rightly fall on your own head.Collection: Fall