DESIRE QUOTES IV

quotations about desire

If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets.

FRANK HERBERT

Dune


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


You had better return home and make a net, than go down to the river and desire to get the fishes.

CHINESE PROVERB


To bliss unknown by lofty soul aspires,
My lot unequal to my vast desires.

JOHN ARBUTHNOT

"Know Yourself", A Supplement to the Miscellaneous Works of the Late Dr. Arbuthnot


There is no natural desire of what is unnatural.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms


And desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.

BIBLE

Ecclesiastes 12:5


It is not poverty which produces sorrow, but desire.

EPICTETUS

Fragments


Is it the gods who set this fire in our hearts, or do we each make our fierce desire into a god?

URSULA K. LE GUIN

Lavinia


Desire is what leads you through life until the time comes when you desire a higher life. So do not be ashamed that you want so much, yet at the same time do not fool yourself into thinking that what you want today will be enough tomorrow.

DEEPAK CHOPRA

The Way of the Wizard


All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.

ECKHARD TOLLE

The Power of Now


Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims


How is the anxious soul of man befool'd in his desire,
That thinks an hectic fever may be cool'd in flames of fire?

FRANCIS QUARLES

Emblems


Everything desires not like but unlike: for example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the full, the full the void, and so of all other things; for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas like receives like receives nothing from like.

PLATO

Lysis


Two hearts fading like a flower
And all this waiting for the power
For some answer to this fire
Sinking slowly
The water is higher
Desire

RYAN ADAMS

"Desire", Demolition


Why can I never set my heart on a possible thing?

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Left Hand of Darkness


While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

Characteristics


For prudence is of the mind, but desire is of the soul, and while his brain of to-day whispered wariness, voices in his heart of long ago shouted commands that he knew he must obey with joy.

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

Pan's Garden

Tags: Algernon Blackwood


Men over-estimate what they desire
Through ignorance of it: credulous Pursuit
Thinks his betrothed, Possession, is divine;
But finds she is a mortal like himself.

HENRY ABBEY

"Karagwe"


Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.

NAPOLEON HILL

Think and Grow Rich


Seen by himself, Desire appears the least well-favoured of the Gods: but when he is in Love's company, the two can hardly be distinguished.

RICHARD GARNETT

De Flagello Myrtes