quotations about desire
Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offense.
LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE
Journey to the End of the Night
The object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desires.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody can reach in this life to feeling immortal.
JOHN BERGER
Bento's Sketchbook
To call a desire into being, to nourish it, to develop it, to bring it to full growth, to excite it, to satisfy it, is a complete poem of itself.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Desire: the starting point of all achievement.
NAPOLEON HILL
Think and Grow Rich
People are distracted by objects of desire, and afterwards repent of the lust they've indulged, because they have indulged with a phantom and are left even farther from Reality than before. Your desire for the illusory is a wing, by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality. When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off; you become lame and that fantasy flees. Preserve the wing and don't indulge such lust, so that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise. People fancy they are enjoying themselves, but they are really tearing out their wings for the sake of an illusion.
JALALUDDIN RUMI
The Pocket Rumi Reader
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Man and Superman
It is a terrible magic in this world to ask for exactly the thing you want. Not least because to know exactly the thing you want and look it in the eye is a long, long labor.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs and flaming hair,
But Desire gratified
Plants fruits of life and beauty there.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Gnomic Verses
Our Desires snort and press forward like giddy stallions, but our Means creep sulkily along like snails.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire.
JACQUELINE CAREY
Kushiel's Dart
It will not do, my friend, to grant an easy indulgence to natural appetite and desire, for they ever seek to be our masters.
T.S. ARTHUR
"A Mystery Explained,", After a Shadow and Other Stories
The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul.
BIBLE
Proverbs 13:19
Want will make a rogue of any man.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
Kull: Exile of Atlantis
To be desired by those who are themselves highly desirable is in itself an aphrodisiac.
TOBSHA LEARNER
Quiver: A Book of Erotic Tales
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.
MARCEL PROUST
Les Plaisirs et les Jours
The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Table Talk , July 23, 1827