128 Quotes by 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.

I have never done anything in my life except try to make myself ill when I had my health and try to make myself well when I had lost it. I have been equally and thoroughly successful in both, and today in that particular I enjoy perfect health, which I wish I could ruin again; but age prevents me.

If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.

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

It is shallow desires which make a young man bold; strong desires confound him.

one who makes no mistakes makes nothing

You will laugh when you discover that I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I found it necessary. As for women, this sort of reciprocal deceit cancels itself out, for when love enters in, both parties are usually dupes

Be the flame, not the moth.

Rhetoric makes use of nature’s secrets in the same way as painters who try to imitate it: their most beautiful work is false.