Casanova
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt was a Venetian adventurer and author. His main book Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), part autobiography and part memoir, is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century.
He was so famous as a womanizer that his name remains synonymous with the art of seduction and he is sometimes called "the world's greatest lover". He associated with European royalty, popes and cardinals, along with men such as Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart; but if he had not been obliged to spend some years as a librarian in the household of Count Waldstein of Bohemia (where he relieved his boredom by writing the story of his life), it is possible that he would be forgotten today
“We love without heeding reason, and cease to love in the same manner.”
“The sweetest pleasures are those which are hardest to be won.”
“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.”
“The philosopher is a person who refuses no pleasures which do not produce greater sorrows, and who knows how to create new ones.”
“Hope is nothing but a deceitful flatterer accepted by reason only because it is often in need of palliatives.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our lives.”
“We ourselve are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.”
“Savoir mal est pire qu'ignorer”