quotations about pleasure
Pleasure is the structure of society. From childhood until death we are secretly, cunningly or obviously pursuing pleasure. So whatever our form of pleasure is, I think we should be very clear about it because it is going to guide and shape our lives. It is therefore important for each one of us to investigate closely, hesitantly and delicately this question of pleasure, for to find pleasure, and then nourish and sustain it, is a basic demand of life and without it existence becomes dull, stupid, lonely and meaningless.
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Freedom from the Known
I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, July 18, 1713
But pleasures are like poppies spread--
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river--
A moment white -- then melts for ever.
ROBERT BURNS
Tam o' Shanter
The path to pleasure is frequently not pretty. One woman's misogynist may be the image of another woman's desire. And men have been known to hunger for those who hate them, too. There is a measure of spiritual authenticity in sleaze.
TRISTAN FOX
Vanity Fair, November 1984
But there are pleasures appropriated to the true christian; joys which no stranger intermeddles with, in the exercise of pure and undefiled religion, which is not only a heightener of our delights, but is itself the greatest of any. Even as the sun imparts a brightness to every other object, and is himself the brightest of all. Whether he contemplates the delightful truths and ravishing mysteries of the gospel; the banquet of the mind, sweeter than all honey:--or practices spiritual duties towards his neighbor, or his God; when he prays with fervent supplication, or praises with joyful lips, or hears in his lovely tabernacles what God the Lord will say, or relieves the indigent for his Redeemer's sake, and comforts the distressed;--or exercises christian graces; be it faith, that is attended with joy unspeakable; or love, that is its own reward, and the fulfilling of the law; or hope, that anticipates the joys above, in blessful expectation, the surest anchor of the soul:--or mortifies fleshly lusts:--or resists temptations, triumphing over them with christian magnanimity:--or endures afflictions, with a becoming patience and cheerful resignation:--he tastes more solid pleasures than ever the sensualist could boast. Pleasures that are true in fruition, fully answering the most sanguine expectation. Pleasures, whose repetition does not cloy, and their continuance is not clogged with satiety. Pleasures, whose review fills not the cheek with blushing, being honorable and glorious as the immortal soul, and pure as the joys of angels. Pleasures, whose consequences are not dangerous--to the body, by wasting its beauty, or preying on its health;--to the reputation, by fixing upon it an indelible stain;--to the estate by making a shipwreck of it in the horrid gulf of prodigality. Especially not dangerous to the soul, by darkening the mind, fattening the heart, searing the conscience, and exposing to eternal vengeance.--Pleasures, whose duration is not short; that can live in the winter of adversity, illuminate the valley of death, and pass into eternity.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On Pleasure", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and staging, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that the diner must be satisfied with the menu.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Dialectic of Enlightenment
As an experience, pleasure is ... a filling up of the cup, the supplying of a need. And the deeper the draft upon vital resources, the greater the fulfilment of desire.
WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING
The Psychological Bulletin, May 15, 1908
Pleasure is an ineffable something known only to the possessor and capable of being rated only by him: for certainly one who does not share a secret cannot, in his unblissful ignorance, assume to pronounce upon its value.
WILSON D. WALLIS
The Journal of Philosophy, July 3, 1919
Better to tread where thorns and briars wound,
And safely walk at last on heavenly ground--
Than for a while to bask in pleasure's bowers,
Fanned by her breath, and shaded 'mongst her flowers:
To feel the phantom ground beneath you slide,
And see wild desolation yawning wide
T' ingulph its victim; who, around in vain,
Despairing looks for pleasure's vanished train.
ELEANOR DICKINSON
"Pleasures of Piety", The Pleasures of Piety with Other Poems
Everybody's looking for a reason to live
If you're looking for a reason
I've a reason to give
Pleasure, little treasure
DEPECHE MODE
"Pleasure, Little Treasure"
Pleasure is a crumbling statue.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Ah, many a one has started forth with hope and purpose high;
Has fought throughout a weary life, and passed all pleasure by;
Has burst all flowery chains by which men aye have been enthralled;
Has been stone-deaf to voices sweet, that softly, sadly called;
Has scorned the flashing goblet with the bubbles on its brim;
Has turned his back on jewelled hands that madly beckoned him;
Has, in a word, condemned himself to follow out his plan
By stern and lonely labor--and has died, a conquered man!
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Wool-Gathering"
The contrast is between necessity and pleasure. To satisfy the first is legitimate and, in fact, obligatory; to renounce the second is possible, even meritorious. The problem is that the line of demarcation between necessity and pleasure is very fine and often imperceptible; when one eats or drinks, the two go together, inextricably bound. It is precisely from this observation that a culture of deep suspicion developed in Christian tradition toward the daily gestures of eating and drinking, so innocuous at first glance.
MASSIMO MONTANARI & BETH ARCHER BROMBERT
Medieval Tastes: Food, Cooking, and the Table
Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment.
OSCAR WILDE
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Even though the pursuit of pleasure is part of the American dream--an unassailable right--it is a guilt-ridden hunt.
PALA COPELAND & AL LINK
Soul Sex
For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
What is painful in pleasure? It is that in all pleasure a person desires eternity, but knows that pleasure is transient and will end. That is not a knowing that comes from a prior knowledge now applied to every pleasurable event; it is something that the depth of pleasure itself discloses to us if we listen to it: a thirst, a craving, for eternity, precisely because pleasure is not eternal but instead has fallen prey to death. On the other hand we ask: What pleasure is there in pain? It is that in the depth of pain a person feels pleasure in transience, pleasure in the obliteration of apparently endless pain, pleasure in death.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
Creation and Fall
Business first, then pleasure.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Richelieu
Past pleasures are of as little comfort to a man as the money in his neighbor's pocket.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
When happiness was a matter of pleasure, and pleasure a matter of taste, one could be happy simply by rolling in filth.
DARRIN M. MCMAHON
Happiness: A History