Giacomo Casanova Quotes

A man of pleasure is a man of pains.

He who takes his fill of every pleasure ... becomes depraved; while he who avoids all pleasures alike ... becomes insensible.

Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain, the enjoying of something I am in great trouble for till I have it.

I seek the utmost pleasure and the least pain.

In everything, satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.

All desirable things... are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

I'm a hedonist.

No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures; no ascetic can be considered reliably sane.

If I must choose between healthy and tasty, I go for the second: having only one life to waste, it might as well be a pleasurable one.

Who ever said that pleasure wasn't functional?

No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures. No ascetic can be considered reliably sane.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.

There are only Epicureans, either crude or refined; Christ was the most refined.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure.

People are extremely reluctant to give up that which gives them pleasure.

To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicurianism of reason.

Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.

Power is pleasure; and pleasure sweetens pain.

But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.

We begin every act of choice and avoidance from pleasure, and it is to pleasure that we return using our experience of pleasure as the criterion of every good thing.