Casanova Quotes

Casanova, the greatest lover in history, was an erudite man who wrote a multi-volume memoir about his exploits. While often salacious in detail, the Memoirs of Jacques Casanova are also a literary masterpiece. Casanova was a keen observer of human behaviour. These quotes are from the memoirs of Casanova:

Love is a sort of madness, I grant that, but a madness over which philosophy is entirely powerless; it is a disease to which man is exposed at all times, no matter at what age, and which cannot be cured, if he is attacked by it in his old age. -- Casanova

One of the advantages of a great sorrow is that nothing else seems painful. It is a sort of despair which is not without some sweetness. -- Casanova

Silliness is the daughter of wit. Therefore it is not a paradox to say that the French would be wiser if they were less witty. -- Casanova

Misery of knowing that he would not be regretted after his death. -- Casanova

People want to know everything, and they invent when they cannot guess the truth. -- Casanova

She was at all events exempt from that fearful venom called jealousy--an unhappy passion which devours the miserable being who is labouring under it, and destroys the love that gave it birth. -- Casanova

Desire is only kept alive by being denied: enjoyment kills it, since one cannot desire what one has got. -- Casanova

If one tells a lie a sufficient number of times, one ends by believing it. -- Casanova

Lucie was only thirty-three, but she was the wreck of a woman, and women are always as old as they look. -- Casanova

For in the night, you know, all cats are grey. -- Casanova

M. de Voltaire is a man who ought to be known, although, in spite of the laws of nature, many persons have found him greater at a distance than close at hand. -- Casanova

"What's an evasion?"--"A way of escaping from a difficulty without satisfying impertinent curiosity." -- Casanova

I had rather be your debtor than for you to be mine. -- Casanova

I paid a second time, laughing at the clever rascal who had taken me in so thoroughly. Such are the lessons of life; always full of new experiences, and yet one never knows enough. -- Casanova

"We have enjoyed ourselves," said Marcoline, "and time that is given to enjoyment is never lost." -- Casanova

Time that destroys marble and brass destroys also the very memory of what has been. -- Casanova

She asked where he was, and I said at Venice; but of course she did not believe me. There are circumstances when a clever man deceives by telling the truth, and such a lie as this must be approved by the most rigorous moralists. -- Casanova