DESIRE QUOTES III

quotations about desire

Men will gamble and plot and fight and fall, all for the winning of a trophy. A woman's heart, a piece of land, a kingdom, a lordship, a contract, a ship, an egg -- it hardly matters the which or the what, as soon as it is seen to be desired by one, another will make a prize of it.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

The Stone Gods


People who constantly find new disguises for their desires can easily lie to themselves.

HANS-ULRICH RIEKER

The Secret of Meditation


Desire is the source of our most noble aspirations and our deepest sorrows. The pleasure and the pain go together; indeed, they emanate from the same region in our hearts. We cannot live without the yearning, and yet the yearning sets us up for disappointment--sometimes deep and devastating disappointment.

JOHN ELDREDGE

Desire


'Tis much easier to suppress a first desire, than to satisfy all those that follow it.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims


From the unknown, profound desires enter in upon us, and ... the fulfilling of those desires is the fulfilling of creation.

D. H. LAWRENCE

"Love"


Human nature, at its best, had always been based on a deep heroic restlessness, on wanting something--something else, something more, whether it be true love or a glimpse just beyond the horizon. It was the promise of happiness, not the attainment of it, that had driven the entire engine, the folly and glory of who we are.

WILL FERGUSON

Happiness


We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain--money, position, the approval of others, or just absence of the discontent itself--it's not worth it.

JOHN ELDREDGE

Desire


The desire of the righteous ends only in good, but the hope of the wicked in wrath.

KING SOLOMON

Proverbs 11:23


We should not desire the impossible.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Thoughts on Art and Life


If men could regard the events of their lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

ANDRÉ MAUROIS

The Art of Living


It is not poverty which produces sorrow, but desire.

EPICTETUS

Fragments


Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true; everything that is not puts us in a rage.

ANDRÉ MAUROIS

An Art of Living


That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost
The desires for all that was most desirable,
Before you are contented with what you can desire;
Before you know what is left to be desired;
And you go on wishing that you could desire
What desire has left behind. But you cannot understand.
How could you understand what it is to feel old?

T. S. ELIOT

The Cocktail Party


As all-consuming as a young girl's fancies were ... a woman's desires could be twice as dangerous.

TERESA MEDEIROS

The Vampire Who Loved Me


Passing into higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant, and fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man.

HENRY GEORGE

Progress and Poverty


The first and most practical step in getting what one wants in this world is wanting it. One would think that the next step would be expressing what one wants. But it almost never is. It generally consists in wanting it still harder.

GERALD STANLEY LEE

Crowds


The central fire is desire, and all the powers of our being are given us to see, to fight for, and to win the object of our desire. Quench that fire and man turns to ashes.

BASIL W. MATURIN

Laws of the Spiritual Life


Each person discovers a field of allurements, the totality of which bears the unique stamp of that person's personality. Destiny unfolds in the pursuit of individual fascinations and interests ... By pursuing your allurements, you help bind the universe together. The unity of the world rests on the pursuit of passion.

BRIAN SWIMME

The Universe is a Green Dragon


Want is a growing giant whom the coat of have was never large enough to cover.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The Conduct of Life


Nothing is more human than for man to desire naturally things impossible to his nature. It is, indeed, the property of a nature which is not closed up in matter like the nature of physical things, but which is intellectual or infinitized by the spirit. It is the property of a metaphysical nature. Such desires reach for the infinite, because the intellect thirsts for being and being is infinite.

JACQUES MARITAIN

Approaches to God