quotations about desire
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
We are encouraged to believe, for example, that there are consensual objects of desire, that every man wants a certain woman. Well, actually, every man doesn't want that certain woman. The really frightening thing about desire is how idiosyncratic it is. We may desire people whom we might not like, or want, or whom other people might not think beautiful. So idiosyncratic is it that we want to pool this feeling, foreclose it, into consensual objects. The culture is encouraging the belief that there's more consensus than there in fact is.
ADAM PHILLIPS
Bomb Magazine, fall 2010
It is not poverty which produces sorrow, but desire.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
You had better return home and make a net, than go down to the river and desire to get the fishes.
CHINESE PROVERB
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
And desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.
BIBLE
Ecclesiastes 12:5
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"
Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
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
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
Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.
HENRY GEORGE
Progress and Poverty
Why can I never set my heart on a possible thing?
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
Want is a growing giant whom the coat of have was never large enough to cover.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
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
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
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
A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
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