Giacomo Casanova Quotations

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. He who gave alms sinned unless it was done with the greatest secrecy, for alms given in public are sure to be accompanied by vanity.

4. 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...

5. Best plan in this world is to be astonished at nothing.

6. Essence of freedom consists in thinking you have it.

7. Fanaticism, no matter of what nature, is only the plague of the human mind.

8. Many things become real which, at first, had no existence but in our imagination, and, as a natural consequence, many facts which have been attributed to Faith may not always have been miraculous, although they are true miracles for those who lend to Faith a boundless power.

9. He asserted that nothing was more troublesome than incertitude, and therefore he condemned thought because it gives birth to doubt.

10. Delights are in proportion to the privations we have suffered.

11. The last thing which we learn in all languages is wit, and wit never shines so well as in jests.

12. Look on everything we don't possess as a superfluity.

13. Made a point of forgetting everything unpleasant.

14. One never knows enough.

15. My spirit and my desires are as young as ever.

16. A man needs so little to console him or to soothe his grief.

17. Laugh out of season.

18. Tell me whether that contempt of life renders you worthy of it.

19. 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.

20. Necessity begets ingenuity.

21. Time that is given to enjoyment is never lost.

22. Whether it is happy or unhappy, a man's life is the only treasure he can ever possess. Those who do not love life do not deserve it.

23. When you fool a fool, you strike a blow for intelligence.

24. The citizen who wants to avoid persecution must, if he is not like everyone else or worse, bend his every effort to appearing to be so. If he has much talent, he must hide it; if he is ambitious, he must pretend to scorn honors; if he wants to obtain anything, he must ask for nothing; if his person is...

... handsome, he must neglect it; he must look slovenly and dress badly, his accessories must be of the plainest, he must ridicule everything foreign; he must bow awkwardly, not pride himself on being well-mannered, care little for the fine arts, conceal his good taste if he has it.... he must wear an ill-combed wig and be a little dirty.

25. A man never argues well except when his purse is well filled; then his spirits are pitched in a high key, unless he should happen to be stupefied by some passion raging in his soul.

26. Anger and reason do not belong to the same family.

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

28. Happy are those who know how to obtain pleasures without injury to anyone; insane are those who fancy that the Almighty can enjoy the sufferings, the pains, the fasts and abstinences which they offer to Him as a sacrifice, and that His love is granted only to those who tax themselves so foolishly.

29. True virtue is but a habit, and I have no hesitation in saying that the really virtuous are those persons who can practice virtue without the slightest trouble.

30. The theory of morals and its usefulness through the life of man can be compared to the advantage derived by running over the index of a book before reading it when we have perused that index we know nothing but the subject of the work.

31. Cicero says that death frees us from all pains and sorrows, but this great philosopher books all the expense without taking the receipts into account.

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