Quotes from Giacomo Casanova

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.

I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian.

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

In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Heart and head are the constituent parts of character temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.

I am bound to add that the excess in too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in too much the last may cause indigestion, but the first causes death.