quotations about desire
We are the mediocre,
we are the half givers,
we are the half lovers,
we are the savourless salt.
Break the hard crust
of complacency.
Quicken in us
the sharp grace of desire.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER
attributed, Soul Weavings
Desire rules over men, those half-gods vain,
And is the tyrant of their heart and brain.
FERNAND GREGH
"Desire"
I surrender all control
To the desire that consumes me whole
And leads me by the hand to infinity
That lies in wait at the heart of me
DEPECHE MODE
"Higher Love"
The very urge to get rid of desire is still desire, is it not?
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Think on These Things
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Temptation, break the vow
Cut flesh from the sacred cow
Unchain the tiger, kiss the flame, feel your desire
DEF LEPPARD
"Pearl of Euphoria", Slang
She's the dollars
She's my protection
Yeah, she's the promise
In the year of election
Ah, sister, I can't let you go
I'm like a preacher stealing hearts in a traveling show
For the love or money, money
Desire
Desire
U2
"Desire", Rattle and Hum
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
Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
But how long before this desperate wickedness overruns the qualms of good people? Before the desire for the smell of cooking meat, the softness of flesh, breaks us all?
CHRIS ABANI
Hands Washing Water
Disdain to warm thee at lust's smoky fires,
Scorn, scorn to feed on thy old bloat desires:
Come, come, my soul, hoist up thy higher sails,
The wind blows fair; shall we still creep like snails,
That glide their ways with their own native slimes?
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
The moth unwitting rushes on the fire,
Through ignorance the fish devours the bait,
We men know well the foes that lie in wait,
Yet cannot shun the meshes of desire.
BHARTRHARI
"Against the Love of Beauty"
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
The real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", The Ivory and the Horn
I am still concerned with primitive desire, as it exists in man, but in the form in which man shows his affinity to his animal ancestors.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Analysis of Mind
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you
AMY LOWELL
"The Letter", Pictures of the Floating World
People think they know what they want but they generally don't. Sometimes if they're lucky they'll get it anyways.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
No Country for Old Men
Sex ... or lack thereof ... is at the center of everyone's identity, and once you've cracked someone's desires, you understand them in full.
ARIANNE COHEN
Marie Claire Magazine, March 2008
What desire can be contrary to nature, since it was given to man by nature itself?
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
The grave is sooner cloy'd than men's desire.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems