Produced by David Widger
CASANOVA
QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM THE MEMOIRS OF CASANOVA
THE MEMOIRS OF CASANOVA
By Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
A man never argues well except when his purse is well filled
Accepted the compliment for what it was worth
Accomplice of the slanderer
Advantages of a great sorrow is that
nothing else seems painful
Age, that cruel and unavoidable disease
All women, dear Leah are for sale
All-powerful lever, gold
Alms given in public are sure to be
accompanied by vanity
Anger and reason do not belong to the same family
Angry man always thinks himself right
At my age I could not be allowed to
have any opinions
Augurs could never look at each other without laughing
Awkward or miserly, and therefore
unworthy of love
Axiom that “neglected right is lost
right”
Beauty is the only unpardonable offence in your eyes
Beauty without wit offers love nothing
Bed is a capital place to get an
appetite
Best plan in this world is to be
astonished at nothing
Beware of the man of one book
Calumnies are easy to utter but hard to refute
Cherishing my grief
Clever man deceives by telling the
truth
Commissaries of Chastity
Confession
Contempt of life
Could tell a good story without
laughing
Criticism only grazed the skin and
never wounded deeply
Delights are in proportion to the
privations we have suffered
Desire is only kept alive by being
denied
Desire to make a great fuss like a
great man
Despair which is not without some
sweetness
Despised ignoramus becomes an enemy
Diminish the tale of your years instead of increasing it
Distance is relative
Divinities–novelty and singularity
Do not mind people believing anything, provided it is not true
Do their duty, and to live in peace and sweet ignorance
Economy in pleasure is not to my taste
Emotion is infectious
Essence of freedom consists in thinking you have it
Everything hung from an if
Exercise their reason to avoid the
misfortunes which they fear
Fanaticism, no matter of what nature, is only the plague
Fatal desire for luxury and empty show spoils all
Favourite passion has always been
vengeance
First motive is always self-interest
Foolish enough to write the truth
For in the night, you know, all cats
are grey
For is love anything else than a kind of curiosity?
Fortune flouts old age
Found him greater at a distance than
close at hand
Gave the Cardinal de Rohan the famous necklace
Girl who gave nothing must take nothing
Give yourself up to whatever fate
offers to you,
Government ought never to destroy
ancient customs abruptly
Groans, and prayers, and blasphemies
Happiness is purely a creature of the imagination
Happiness is not lasting–nor is man
Happy or unhappy from a merely cursory inspection
Happy ignorance!
Happy age when one’s inexperience is
one’s sole misfortune
Hasty verses are apt to sacrifice wit to rhyme
He won’t be uneasy–he is a philosopher
Hobbes: of two evils choose the least
Honest old man will not believe in the existence of rascals
Idle questions which are commonly
addressed to a traveller
If this and if that, and every other if
If I could live my life over again
If history did not lie
Ignorance is bliss
Ignorant, who talk about everything
right or wrong
Imagine that what they feel themselves others must feel
It is only fools who complain
It’s too much for honour and too little for love
Jealousy leads to anger, and anger goes a long way
Knowing that he would not be regretted after his death
Last thing which we learn in all
languages is wit
Laugh out of season
Let not thy right hand know what thy
left hand doeth
Lie a sufficient number of times, one ends by believing it
Light come, light go
Love always makes men selfish
Look on everything we don’t possess as a superfluity
Love fills our minds with idle visions
Love makes no conditions
Made a point of forgetting everything unpleasant
Made a parade of his Atheism
Man needs so little to console him or to soothe his grief
Marriage without enjoyment is a thorn without roses
Marriage state, for which I felt I had no vocation
Married a rich wife, he repented of
having married at all
Mere beauty does not go for much
Most trifling services are assessed at the highest rates
My spirit and my desires are as young as ever
My time was too short to write so
little
Mystical insinuations
Negligent attire
Never to pass an opinion on any subject
Never wearied himself with too much
thinking
Nobody read his books, but everybody
agreed he was learned
‘Non’ is equal to giving the lie
Now I am too old to begin curing myself
Obscenity disgusts, and never gives
pleasure
Oh! wonderful power of self-delusion
One never knows enough
Owed all its merits to antithesis and paradox
Pardonable weakness, most of us prefer “mine” to “thine”
Passing infidelity, but not inconstancy
Passion and prejudice cannot reason
People did not want to know things as they truly were
People want to know everything, and
they invent
Pigmies mimicking a giant
Pity to sell cheaply what would have to be replaced dearly
Pleasures are realities, though all too fleeting
Pope, whom no Roman can believe to be infallible
Post-masters
Prejudices which had the sanction of
the law
Pride is the daughter of folly
Privately indulged in every luxury that he forbade to others
Privilege of a nursing mother
Promising everlasting constancy
Proud nation, at once so great and so little
Quacks
Rather be your debtor than for you to be mine
Read when I am gone
Reading innumerable follies one finds written in such places
Repentance for a good deed
Reproached by his wife for the money he had expended
Rid of our vices more easily than of
our follies
Rome the holy, which thus strives to
make all men pederasts
Rumour is only good to amuse fools
Sad symptom of misery which is called a yawn
Sadness is a disease which gives the
death-blow to affection
Scold and then forgive
Scrupulously careful not to cheat you in small things
Seldom praised and never blamed
Selfishness, then, the universal motor of our actions?
Shewed his contempt by saying nothing
Sin concealed is half pardoned
Sleep–the very likeness of
non-existence
Snatching from poor mortal man the
delusions
Soften the hardships of the slow but
certain passage to the grave
Stupid servant is more dangerous than a bad one
‘Sublata lucerna nullum discrimen inter feminas’
Submissive gaze of a captive who
glories in his chain
Surface is always the first to interest
Talent of never appearing to be a
learned man
Taste and feeling
Tell me whether that contempt of life renders you worthy of it
There is no cure for death
There’s time enough for that
Time that is given to enjoyment is
never lost
Time that destroys marble and brass
destroys also the very memory
Time is a great teacher
Timidity is often another word for
stupidity
To know ill is worse than not to know at all
Vengeance is a divine pleasure
Verses which, like parasites, steal
into a funeral oration
Victims of their good faith
Wash their dirty linen in private
What is love?
When we can feel pity, we love no
longer
When one is in an ill humour,
everything is fuel for the fire
Whims of the mob and the fancies of the Republic
Wife worthy of being a mistress
Wiser if they were less witty
Wish is father to the thought
Wit cannot stand before stupidity
Woman has in her tears a weapon
Women are always as old as they look
Women would be either tyrants or slaves
Women often do the most idiotic things out of sheer obstinacy
World of memories, without a present
and without a future
Would like to shape the laws according to their needs
Wretch treats me so kindly that I love him more and more
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