Giacomo Casanova (1725 to 1798) saw himself as a writer and philosopher. Among his works are a translation of Homer into Italian, an extensive utopian novel, a history of Poland, mathematical treatises, poems, satires, and essays. He entered world literature with his memoirs, which were published 30 years after his death. Thoughts on the course of time and human behavior, on love, lust, and vice, on women, God, and the world, which are scattered throughout his entire work, are compiled here into a reader and contain the practical life philosophy of a man who, in the minds of many, continues to live on - unjustly - only as the great seducer and lover.