quotations about desire
Through their proper knowledge
Creatures of Discernment forsake that Desire
Through which lustful creatures
Go to misfortune.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka
While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
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
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"
Forbid us something, and that thing we desire; but press it on us hard, and we will flee.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
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
Desire is this absurdity that holds open the infinity of possibility. Ever optimistic, ever resourceful, desire tells us what it sees as it speeds ahead on its divine wings. What we cannot see, desire describes, and then it goads us to travel on until we have given birth to Joy.
WENDY FARLEY
The Wounding and Healing of Desire
When you believe, or are led to believe, you are unable to act upon the greatest desires of the soul, the result is mental and spiritual enslavement.
IYANLA VANZANT
Acts of Faith
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion; and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
And desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.
BIBLE
Ecclesiastes 12:5
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
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
To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve. Shall man's basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law: such a condition of things can never obtain: "ask and receive."
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
Human psychology has a near universal tendency to let belief be coloured by desire.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
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
There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.
PLATO
The Republic
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The History of Rasselas
A desire scorned and neglected is an enemy lying in wait with bared dagger.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
We become decrepit with age, but not so Desire.
Infirmity assails us, the skin wrinkles,
The hair whitens, the body becomes crooked,
Old age comes on.
Desire alone grows younger every day.
BHARTRHARI
"Verses on Renunciation"