"I am bound to add that the excess in too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in too much; the last may cause indigestion, but the first causes death"
About this Quote
Casanova turns appetite into autobiography, then slips a blade between the ribs. The line pretends to be about diet and digestion, but it’s really a manifesto for excess as self-preservation. “Too much” is framed as an inconvenience, the sort of bourgeois problem you can sleep off. “Too little” becomes lethal, not because of literal starvation, but because deprivation is, for him, a kind of social and erotic death. The subtext is clear: moderation isn’t virtue; it’s disappearance.
What makes it work is the mock-earnest calibration of risk. Casanova speaks like a man offering practical advice, yet the stakes jump from indigestion to death in a single pivot. That escalation is the joke and the confession. He’s admitting that his baseline is intensity: less pleasure doesn’t just disappoint him, it unravels him. The phrasing “I am bound to add” adds courtroom formality, as if he’s forced by the evidence of his own life to state this dangerous preference. It’s performative honesty, crafted to sound unavoidable.
Context matters: Casanova’s 18th-century Europe runs on patronage, salons, gambling houses, travel, and carefully managed reputation. His celebrity is built from motion and appetite, not stability. In that world, “too little” can mean fewer invitations, fewer lovers, fewer wagers, fewer exits. Saying scarcity kills is also a warning about the social economy he mastered: abundance keeps you alive, visible, and untouchable; restraint makes you just another man at the table.
What makes it work is the mock-earnest calibration of risk. Casanova speaks like a man offering practical advice, yet the stakes jump from indigestion to death in a single pivot. That escalation is the joke and the confession. He’s admitting that his baseline is intensity: less pleasure doesn’t just disappoint him, it unravels him. The phrasing “I am bound to add” adds courtroom formality, as if he’s forced by the evidence of his own life to state this dangerous preference. It’s performative honesty, crafted to sound unavoidable.
Context matters: Casanova’s 18th-century Europe runs on patronage, salons, gambling houses, travel, and carefully managed reputation. His celebrity is built from motion and appetite, not stability. In that world, “too little” can mean fewer invitations, fewer lovers, fewer wagers, fewer exits. Saying scarcity kills is also a warning about the social economy he mastered: abundance keeps you alive, visible, and untouchable; restraint makes you just another man at the table.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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