Giacomo Quotes & Sayings

Love is a great poet, its resources are inexhaustible, but if the end it has in view is not obtained, it feels weary and remains silent. — Giacomo Casanova

I found that the writer who says SUBLATA LUCERNA NULLUM DISCRIMEN INTER MULIERES ('when the lamp is taken away, all women are alike') says true; but without love, this great business is a vile thing. — Giacomo Casanova

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

Love is only a feeling of curiousity more or less intense, grafted upon the inclination placed in us by nature that the species may be preserved. — Giacomo Casanova

Happy are those lovers who, when their senses require rest, can fall back upon the intellectual enjoyments afforded by the mind! Sweet sleep then comes, and lasts until the body has recovered its general harmony. On awaking, the senses are again active and always ready to resume their action. — Giacomo Casanova

How the stars shone.
How sweet the earth smelled.
The orchard gate creaked,
and a footstep pressed on the sand.
And she entered, fragrant as a flower, and fell into my arms.
Oh, sweet kisses, lingering caresses.
Slowly, trembling, I gazed upon her beauty.
Now my dream of true love is lost forever.
My last hour has flown, and I die, hopeless, and never have I loved life more. — Giacomo Puccini

It is only necessary to have courage, for strength without self-confidence is useless. — Giacomo Casanova

The commonplace expression that life is nothing but a play is verified above all in this: the world speaks absolutely consistently in one way and acts absolutely consistently in another. — Giacomo Leopardi

Nothing in the world is so rare as a person one can always put up with. — Giacomo Leopardi

I did 'Quigley Down Under,' which is quite deliberately placed in Australia, which is a Tom Selleck, Alan Rickman, Laura San Giacomo film from '88, I want to say. — Ben Mendelsohn

I have loved women even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better. — Giacomo Casanova

Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind. — Giacomo Leopardi

Everything that is ended, everything that is last, naturally awakens in man a feeling of sorrow and melancholy. At the same time, it excites a pleasurable feeling, pleasurable in that very sorrow, and that is because of the infiniteness of the idea that is contained in the words ended, last, etc. ( Thus by their nature such words are, and always will be, poetic, however ordinary and common they are, in whatever language and style.) — Giacomo Leopardi

The world is changing and the physical barriers are down now. It's time for the emotional barriers to go down. And what better place to start than school? — Laura San Giacomo

Aboard the gondola, Giacomo Foscarini sat facing Mathias. They were crossing the Canal Grande, then they would navigate around San Marco and return. Foscarini loved to travel around Venice this way. They stopped briefly at a mooring near the bridge to the Rialto, and Foscarini had a servant fetch green olives, fresh Piacenza cheese, a few sausages from Modena, and wine that had just been delivered from Crete. The nobleman often dined aboard his gondola, looking out over the city, watching his world. "Seen from this vantage point, Venice doesn't seem like it's in any of its terrible troubles at all magister," said Foscarini. — Riccardo Bruni

Art is a kind of illness. — Giacomo Puccini

I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian. — Giacomo Casanova

The greater part of the people we assign to educate our sons we know for certain are not educated. Yet we do not doubt that they can give what they have not received, a thing which cannot be otherwise acquired. — Giacomo Leopardi

The Infinite
It was always dear to me, this solitary hill,
and this hedgerow here, that closes out my view,
from so much of the ultimate horizon.
But sitting here, and watching here, in thought,
I create interminable spaces,
greater than human silences, and deepest
quiet, where the heart barely fails to terrify.
When I hear the wind, blowing among these leaves,
I go on to compare that infinite silence
with this voice, and I remember the eternal
and the dead seasons, and the living present,
and its sound, so that in this immensity
my thoughts are drowned, and shipwreck seems sweet
to me in this sea. — Giacomo Leopardi

What do you want to say to me?'
'Nothing - just to talk about the profession I am entering. I am about to practice virtue in order to find a man who loves it only to destroy it' [replied Mademoiselle Vesian.]
'That is it exactly; and believe me, everything in this life is much the same. We refer everything to ourselves, and each of us is a tyrant. That is why the best of mortals is he who is tolerant. — Giacomo Casanova

The most solid pleasure in this life is the empty pleasure of illusion. — Giacomo Leopardi

People are ashamed, not of the injustices they do, but of those they receive. And so, in order that the unjust person should be ashamed, there is no other way than to give as good as one gets. — Giacomo Leopardi

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

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. — Giacomo Casanova

I did theater at Carnegie, and in Pittsburgh and New York. — Laura San Giacomo

I loved, I was loved, my health was good, I had a great deal of money, and I spent it, I was happy and I confessed it to myself. — Giacomo Casanova

When a sonnet is mediocre it is bad, for it should be sublime. — Giacomo Casanova

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

Old age is the supreme evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet men fear death and desire old age. — Giacomo Leopardi

What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself whenever I am in their company. — Giacomo Casanova De Seingalt

The story she had told me was possible, but it was not believable. — Giacomo Casanova

Praise the beautiful for their intelligence and the intelligent for their beauty. — Giacomo Casanova

Amore." Giacomo pressed a hand against his heart. "How we suffer for it. — Kerrelyn Sparks

I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding. — Giacomo Casanova

Since the world never faults a man who refuses to yield ... it is generally recognized that weak men live in obedience to the world's will, while the strong obey only their own. — Giacomo Leopardi

A man who makes known his love by words is a fool. — Giacomo Casanova

Children find everything in nothing, men find nothing in everything. — Giacomo Leopardi

The man who does good in doubt must have so much more merit than one who does it in the bright certainty of belief. "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold ... " A warning against the smugness of inherited faith. — Morris L. West

[H]appy or miserable, life is the only blessing which man possesses[. — Giacomo Casanova

May God be with me! May Heaven bless this New Year. May it be a year of fruitfulness, of peace and prosperity; may it be a year of peace and unity for all mankind; may the world be freed of cholera. — Giacomo Meyerbeer

The end of pain we take as happiness. — Giacomo Leopardi

My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it. — Giacomo Casanova

I have often met with happiness after some imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his mercy. — Giacomo Casanova

I lived for art, I lived for love — Giacomo Puccini

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. — Giacomo Casanova

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. — Giacomo Casanova

Men do not so much hate an evil-doer, or evil itself, as they hate the man who calls evil by its real name. — Giacomo Leopardi

After all, a beautiful woman without a mind of her own leaves her lover with no resource after he had physically enjoyed her charms. — Giacomo Casanova

No one is so completely disenchanted with the world, or knows it so thoroughly, or is so utterly disgusted with it, that when it begins to smile upon him he does not become partially reconciled to it. — Giacomo Leopardi

Men are wretched by necessity, and determined to believe themselves wretched by accident. — Giacomo Leopardi

The thought that really crushes us is the thought of the futility of life of which death is the visible manifestation. — Giacomo Leopardi

Ignorance is the greatest source of happiness. — Giacomo Leopardi

He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die. — Giacomo Leopardi

Man is almost always as wicked as his needs require. — Giacomo Leopardi

Be the flame, not the moth. — Giacomo Casanova

Even in sin, the act of love -done with love- is shadowed with divinity. Its conformity may be at fault, but its nature is not altered, and its nature is creative, communicative, splendid in surrender. It was in the splendor of my surrender to Nina and she to me, that I first understood how a man might surrender himself to God -if a God existed. The moment of love is a moment of union -of body and spirit- and the act of faith is mutual and implicit. — Morris L. West

Man is free; but not unless he believes he is[.] — Giacomo Casanova

The music of this opera (Madame Butterfly) was dictated to me by God. I was merely instrumental in getting it on paper and communicating it to the public. — Giacomo Puccini

If I had married a woman intelligent enough to guide me, to rule me without my feeling that I was ruled, I should have taken good care of my money, I should have had children, and I should not be, as now I am, alone in the world and possessing nothing. — Giacomo Casanova

Beauty without wit offers love nothing but the material enjoyment of its physical charms, whilst witty ugliness captivates by the charms of the mind, and at last fulfills all the desires of the man it has captivated ...
Let anyone ask a beautiful woman without wit whether she would be willing to exchange a small portion of her beauty for a sufficient dose of wit. If she speaks the truth, she will say, "No, I am satisfied to be as I am." But why is she satisfied? Because she is not aware of her own deficiency. Let an ugly but witty woman be asked if she would change her wit against beauty, and she will not hesitate in saying no. Why? Because, knowing the value of her wit, she is well aware that it is sufficient by itself to make her a queen in any society. — Giacomo Casanova

If you refuse me, I shall be compelled to believe that you are cruelly enjoying my misery, and that you have learned in the most accursed school that the best way of preventing a young man from curing himself of an amorous passion is to excite it constantly; but you must agree with me that, to put such tyranny in practice, it is necessary to hate the person it is practised upon, and, if that be so, I ought to call upon my reason to give me the strength necessary to hate you likewise. — Giacomo Casanova

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

I was lost a long time, without knowing it. Without the Faith, one is free, and that is a pleasant feeling at first. There are no questions of conscience, no constraints, except the constraints of custom, convention and the law, and these are flexible enough for most purposes. It is only later that terror comes. One is free - but free in chaos, in an unexplained and unexplainable world. One is free in a desert, from which there is no retreat but inward, toward the hollow core of oneself. There is nothing to build on but the small rock of one's own pride, and this is a nothing, based on nothing ... I think, therefore I am. But what am I? An accident of disorder, going no place. — Morris L. West

one who makes no mistakes makes nothing — Giacomo Casanova

Men are ready to suffer anything from others or from heaven itself, provided that, when it comes to words, they are untouched. — Giacomo Leopardi

The history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which my memory can evoke; it will therefore commence when I had attained the age of eight years and four months. — Giacomo Casanova

The pleasure I gave my lovers was a four fifth of the pleasure I experienced. — Giacomo Casanova

Passion is the combination of lust and intellect. - (Giacomo Casanova) — Anthony Rudel

I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I found it necessary ... We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and ... deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man. What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself when I am in their company. — Giacomo Casanova

Man is free, but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it[. — Giacomo Casanova

We love without heeding reason, and cease to love in the same manner. — Giacomo Casanova

Cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life; I have never found any occupation more important. Feeling that I was born for the sex opposite mine, I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it. I have also been extravagantly fond of good food and irresistibly drawn by anything which could excite curiosity. — Giacomo Casanova

I always made my food congenial to my constitution, and my health was always excellent. — Giacomo Casanova

I may be wrong, but it seems rare in our age to find a widely praised person whose own mouth is not the source of that praise. — Giacomo Leopardi

Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it in his bosom. — Giacomo Casanova

When a man gets it into his head to do something, and when he exclusively occupies himself in that design, he must succeed, whatever the difficulties. That man will become Grand Vizier or Pope. — Giacomo Casanova

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

In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man. — Giacomo Casanova

If you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write something worthy of being read. — Giacomo Casanova

I have always had such sincere love for truth, that I have often begun by telling stories for the purpose of getting truth to enter the heads of those who could not appreciate its charms. — Giacomo Casanova

I went to college in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University ... studied acting there. Then I went to New York for about five years. I moved out here about 10 years ago. — Laura San Giacomo

They [his readers, whom he asks to be his friends] will find that I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of first introducing it into minds which were ignorant of its charms (Casanova, p.34, Vol 1 Preface). — Giacomo Casanova

Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life. — Giacomo Casanova

By recollecting the pleasures I have had formerly, I renew them, I enjoy them a second time, while I laugh at the remembrance of troubles now past, and which I no longer feel. — Giacomo Casanova

It's not our disadvantages or shortcomings that are ridiculous, but rather the studious way we try to hide them, and our desire to act as if they did not exist. — Giacomo Leopardi

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. — Giacomo Casanova

It is always easy to break one's word to oneself. — Giacomo Casanova

The work comes into the world at an undetermined hour, from a still unknown, but it comes inevitably. — Giacomo Puccini

Seated here in contemplations lost, my thought discovers vaster space beyond, supernal silence and unfathomed peace — Giacomo Leopardi

I don't believe in inspiration. I believe in work, because while one works one's creativity is opened. — Giacomo Manzu

Thence, I suppose, my natural disposition to make fresh acquaintances, and to break with them so readily, although always for a good reason, and never through mere fickleness. — Giacomo Casanova

Keeping imagination alive through the wonderful world of storytelling. — Giacomo La Rosa

A lot of weird things happen to me. People call out to me on the street and I figure I know them, and I walk over. And then they start to talk about a movie, and I get so embarrassed. Sometimes they think I'm Lorraine Bracco or Laura San Giacomo or Marisa Tomei. I'm sure it happens to them all the time, too. — Annabella Sciorra

For all of my fortune, there are many with misfortune that need a hand. — Laura San Giacomo

You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools. — Giacomo Casanova

I would say you have the perfect smile. Perfect for the friendly face of death. — Giacomo Lee

Freedom is the dream you dream
While putting thought in chains again
— Giacomo Leopardi

Preserve my artistic creativity and ennoble my artistic fame. — Giacomo Meyerbeer

You live in a damnably twisted and convoluted world," replied Mathias. "And you are trampling accross it with all the delicacy of an elephant in a glass shop!" -Conversation between Mathias Munster and Giacomo Foscarini — Riccardo Bruni

To carry on war, three things are necessary: money, money, and yet more money. — Gian Giacomo Trivulzio