Giacomo Casanova

“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”

“From that moment our love became sad, and sadness is a disease which gives the death-blow to affection.”

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

“I have loved women even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Beauty without wit offers love nothing but the material enjoyment of its physical charms, whilst witty ugliness captivates by the charms of the mind, and at last fulfills all the desires of the man it has captivated... Let anyone ask a beautiful woman without wit whether she would be willing to exchange a small portion of her beauty for a sufficient dose of wit. If she speaks the truth, she will say, "No, I am satisfied to be as I am." But why is she satisfied? Because she is not aware of her own deficiency. Let an ugly but witty woman be asked if she would change her wit against beauty, and she will not hesitate in saying no. Why? Because, knowing the value of her wit, she is well aware that it is sufficient by itself to make her a queen in any society.”

“youth runs away from old age, because it is its most cruel enemy”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“one who makes no mistakes makes nothing”

“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.”

“Man is a free agent; but he is not free if he does not believe it, for the more power he attributes to Destiny, the more he deprives himself of the power which God granted him when he gave him reason.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“The thing is to dazzle”

“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.”

“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.”

“economy spoils pleasure”

“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.”

“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. ”