Giacomo Casanova

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.

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

The source of love, as I learned later, is a curiosity which, combined with the inclination which nature is obliged to give us in order to preserve itself. [_] Hence women make no mistake in taking such pains over their person and their clothing, for it is only by these that they can arouse a curiosity to read them in those whom nature at their birth declared worthy of something better than blindness. [_] As time goes on a man who has loved many women, all of them beautiful, reaches the point of feeling curious about ugly women if they are new to him. He sees a painted woman. The paint is obvious to him, but it does not put him off. His passion, which has become a vice, is ready with the fraudulent title page. __t is quite possible,_ he tells himself, __hat the book is not as bad as all that; indeed, it may have no need of this absurd artifice._ He decides to scan it, he tries to turn over the pages__ut no! the living book objects; it insists on being read properly, and the __gnomaniac_ becomes a victim of coquetry, the monstrous persecutor of all men who ply the trade of love.You, Sir, who are a man of intelligence and have read these least twenty lines, which Apollo drew from my pen, permit me to tell you that if they fail to disillusion you, you are lost__hat is, you will be the victim of the fair sex to the last moment of your life. If that prospect pleases you, I congratulate you

The man who seeks to educate himself must first read and then travel in order to correct what he has learned.

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

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.

There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our lives.

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.

Be the flame, not the moth.

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.

The philosopher is a person who refuses no pleasures which do not produce greater sorrows, and who knows how to create new ones.

It is always easy to break one__ word to oneself.

We ourselve are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.

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.

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.

For my future I have no concern, and as a true philosopher, I never would have any, for I know not what it may be: as a Christian, on the other hand, faith must believe without discussion, and the stronger it is, the more it keeps silent.

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.

The man who has sufficient power over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance is the truly wise man, but such beings are seldom met with.