About Giacomo Casanova: Giacomo Girolamo Casanova is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century.
In the mean time I worship God, laying every wrong action under an interdict which I endeavour to respect, and I loathe the wicked without doing them any injury.
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 reader of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system, has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting to the wind wherever it led.
Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.
Marriage is the tomb of love.
As to the deceit perpetrated upon women, let it pass, for, when love is in the way, men and women as a general rule dupe each other.
Love is three quarters curiosity.
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.
I have felt in my very blood, ever since I was born, a most unconquerable hatred towards the whole tribe of fools, and it arises from the fact that I feel myself a blockhead whenever I am in their company.
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.
The mind of a human being is formed only of comparisons made in order to examine analogies, and therefore cannot precede the existence of memory.
We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised for a fool is covered with steel and it is often very hard to find his vulnerable part.
You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.
In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man.
I don't conquer, I submit.
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.
Hope is nothing but a deceitful flatterer accepted by reason only because it is often in need of palliatives.
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.
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.
We ourselve are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.
