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Desire Quotes

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Desire Quotes

“In our pursuit of the things of this world, we usually prevent enjoyment, by expectation; we anticipate our own happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness of worldly pleasures, by delightful forethoughts of them; so that when we come to possess them, they do not answer the expectation, nor satisfy the desires which were raised about them, and they vanish into nothing.”

WorldHeartDesireAnswersPleasureThis WorldExpectationsRaisedPursuitEnjoymentAnticipationSweetnessDelightfulWorldlyAnticipateForethoughtWorldly Pleasures
Book:The works of the most reverend Dr. John Tillotson containing two hundred sermons and discourses, on several occasions ...
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“Reason cannot desire for man any condition other than that in which not only every individual enjoys the most absolute, unbounded freedom to develop himself out of himself, in true individuality, but in which physical nature, as well, need receive no other shaping by human hands than that which is given to her voluntarily by each individual, according to the measure of his wants and his inclinations, restricted only by the limits of his energy and his rights.”

MenWantNeedsHumansWellsReasonHandsDesireIndividualEnergyGivenEnjoyRightsConditionsLimitsAbsolutesIndividualityInclinationHuman Hands
Author:Wilhelm von Humboldt
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“All political arrangements, in that they have to bring a variety of widely-discordant interests into unity and harmony, necessarily occasion manifold collisions. From these collisions spring misproportions between men's desires and their powers; and from these, transgressions. The more active the State is, the greater is the number of these.”

MenStatesPoliticalDesireInterestNumbersGreaterSpringHarmonyUnityActiveVarietyOccasionsArrangementsCollisionTransgressionManifold
Author:Wilhelm von Humboldt
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“The world that seemed so various and new, well, it does contract. One's burning desire to investigate human behavior, and to make, or imply, statements about it, does fall off. And so one does find that early works are full of energy and also full of vulgarity, crudity, and incompetence, and later works are more carefully finished, and in that sense better literary products. But . . . there's often a freshness that is missing in later works--for every gain there's a loss. I think it evens out in that way.”

ThinkingWorldWayHumansWellsDoeDesireFallEnergyLossMissingProductsBehaviorGainsVariousFinishedStatementsBurningContractsHuman BehaviorIncompetenceFreshnessVulgarityBurning DesireEarly Work
Author:Kingsley Amis
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“It is usual for a woman, even though she may ardently desire to give herself to a man, to feign reluctance, to simulate alarm or indignation. She must be brought to consent by urgent pleading, by lies, adjurations, and promises. I know that only professional prostitutes are accustomed to answer such an invitation with a perfectly frank assent -- prostitutes, or simple-minded, immature girls.”

KnowsMenGivingMayLyingDesireGirlWomenSimpleAnswersPromiseUsualFrankConsentAccustomedUrgentInvitationsAlarmsImmatureIndignationPleadingReluctanceSimulate
Book:Selected Stories
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“Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that it is my earnest desire to regard and promote their truest interest - the interests of the white and of the colored people both and equally and to put forth my best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our political affairs the color line and the distinction between North and South, to the end that we may have not merely a united North or a united South, but a united country.”

PeopleMayEndsCountryStatesPoliticalDesireInterestLinesWhiteUnitedEffortForeverPolicyColorLet MeRegardSouthAffairDistinctionSouthernBehalfEarnestWipeTruestCountrymenBest EffortNorth And South
Author:Rutherford B. Hayes
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“I put myself in the student's place and remember the frustrations, doubts, determination, and desires I felt when I was going through the initial learning process. The things we now do automatically, such as perspective, pencil control, values and composition were as unfamiliar and intimidating as a foreign language.”

RememberDesireValuesLanguageFeltProcessDoubtStudentsPerspectiveDeterminationFrustrationCompositionPencilsInitialsIntimidatingUnfamiliarLearning ProcessWorkshopsForeign Language
Author:Ted Martinez
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“There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can't otherwise see; you hear things you can't otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us.”

NeedsHardShowsDesireHumanityUnderstandingMercyShow MeBrokennessCorrespondingThings That Are Hard
Book:Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
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“Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.”

EyeRunningDesireDarkImagineWeekColorBabyMouthsUniversalElectionSizeExtremesWideRagePresidentialVotingLive ByCoveredSweatPotatoesMutePresidential ElectionInfantileHippo
Book:Idoru
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“All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.”

PeopleIfsShouldDesireCertainSufferingWishEnemyAliveSeeingSlaveProsperityFedsHumankind
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“The modern world is reversing the old virtues of authority. They aimed deliberately to make men unworldly. They did not aim to found society on a full use of the earth's resources; they did not aim to use the whole nature of man; they did not intend him to think out the full expression of his desires. Democracy is a turning point upon those ideals in a pursuit, at first unconsciously, of the richest life that men can devise for themselves.”

ThinkingMenWorldFirstsWholeUseEarthDesireFoundVirtueDemocracyModernExpressionAuthorityResourcesIdealsAimPursuitModern WorldTurning PointsNature Of Man
Author:Walter Lippmann
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“When a man and woman are successfully in love, their whole activity is energized and victorious. They walk better, their digestion improves, they think more clearly, their secret worries drop away, the world is fresh and interesting, and they can do more than they dreamed that they could do. In love of this kind sexual intimacy is not the dead end of desire as it is in romantic or promiscuous love, but periodic affirmation of the inward delight of desire pervading an active life.”

ThinkingMenWorldKindEndsWholeDesireCan DoWalksInterestingSecretWorryActivityMen And WomenDelightActiveIntimacyInwardAffirmationDigestionDead EndsPromiscuousActive Life
Author:Walter Lippmann
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“Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires That trample o'er the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhaltations laden with slow death, And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence.”

SoulJoyDesireTerrorBreatheChiefsVengeanceSpoilCapturedIrresistibleHurryingPestilence
Book:Daniel Deronda0: Collection of British and American Authors
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“The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.”

MenHas BeensIdeasSelfDesireOrderAnimalMoralPrinciplesDutyHigherMereSatisfactionImpressionRecognitionImpulseRisingMasterySelf MasteryBundlesMouldAnimal LifeSubordinationMoral Life
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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“How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!--and such reverence is a bridge to love.--For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture "the enemy" as the man of ressentiment conceives him--and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived "the evil enemy," "the Evil One," and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a "good one"--himself!”

MenFactsDesireEvilEnemyCreationHe ManHonorConceptsMarkEndureDeedsNobleEvolveBridgesDistinctionDespiseReverenceContrastAfterthoughtNoble ManPendants
Book:Basic Writings of Nietzsche
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“To demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength.”

ShouldDesireEnemyMastersDemandWeaknessOvercomingResistanceAbsurdTriumphThirst
Book:On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo
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“Philosophers are not honest enough in their work, although they make a lot of virtuous noise when the problem of truthfulness is touched even remotely. They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic...; while at bottom it is an assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of "inspiration" most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact.”

IfsHeartKindHas BeensMadeRealSelfReasonEnoughPhilosophyFactsProblemInspirationDesireOpinionHonestColdDevelopmentPureBottomPhilosopherNoiseAbstractAssumptionTouchedVirtuousSelf DevelopmentTruthfulnessHunchesDialecticsUnconcernedNot Honest
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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