“I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent.”
Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Giacomo Casanova 55
Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice 1725–1798Related quotes

“What I have done up to this is nothing. I am only at the beginning of the course I must run.”
As quoted in Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito (1788 - 1815) as translated by Frances Cashel Hoey and John Lillie (1881), Vol. II, p. 94
Context: What I have done up to this is nothing. I am only at the beginning of the course I must run. Do you imagine that I triumph in Italy in order to aggrandise the pack of lawyers who form the Directory, and men like Carnot and Barras? What an idea!

“I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I am satisfied with it.”
Grandma Moses : My Life's History (1951)
Context: I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I have thought of it, as I remember all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones, and unpleasant ones, that is how they come out and that is how we have to take them.
I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I am satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.

Reported in his Tennessean's obituary; quoted in "John Seigenthaler dies at 86" http://www.poynter.org/2014/john-seigenthaler-dies-at-86/258597/ by Andrew Beaujon, poynter.org (11 July 2014)

Quoted in Kumble Calls It A day: Quotes... For and By Kumble..., 20 December 2013, Zee News India http://zeenews.india.com/kumble/story.aspx?aid=480775,

“I have two rules in life - to hell with it, whatever it is, and get your work done.”

Quoted by Lord Normanbrook in Action This Day: Working With Churchill. Memoirs by Lord Norman Brook (And Others) http://books.google.com/books?id=qxchAAAAMAAJ&q=%22in+the+course+of+my+life+I+have+often+had+to+eat+my+words+and+I+must+confess+that+I+have+always+found+it+a+wholesome+diet%22&pg=PA28#v=onepage (1968)
Often misquoted as: Eating my words has never given me indigestion. http://books.google.com/books?id=vbsU21fEhLAC&q=%22Eating+my+words+has+never+given+me+indigestion%22&pg=PA486#v=onepage.
Post-war years (1945–1955)