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Desire Quotes

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Desire Quotes

“The desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; ... the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty.”

Humans Desire Motivation Interest Mankind Security Duty Rewards Strongest Incentives Fidelity Ruling Passion

Book:The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution

Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution

“Countless the various species of mankind, Countless the shades which sep'rate mind from mind; No general object of desire is known, Each has his will, and each pursues his own.”

Mind Desire Known Mankind Objects Species Rate Various Pursue Variety Shade Objects Of Desire

Author:William Gifford

“You maintain hope for humanity as an infinite skeptic of gossip and slander. In all mankind's desires for entertainment and exaggeration and sensationalism, when it comes to gossip, the individual always sounds worse than he really is. This is why adhering to gossip subtly affects the mental state of the listener - he goes on holding shady opinions regardless of where the realities of their lights and darknesses may stand.”

Source: Killosophy

“Energy and curiosity are the lifeblood of universities; the desire to find out, to uncover, to dig deeper, to puzzle out obscurities, is the spirit of the university, and it is a channelling of that unresting curiosity that holds mankind together.”

Together Spirit Desire Energy Mankind Curiosity University Deeper Puzzles Obscurity Dig Deep

Book:The Cornish Trilogy

Source: The Cornish Trilogy

“All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those times was never weary of inculcating that "delays are dangerous," and that the sluggish man the man "who roasteth not that which he took in hunting" will not prosper on the earth, and indeed will very soon perish out of it. And in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.”

Source: Physics and Politics: Or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of

“When I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.”

Source: The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...

“So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.”

Men Firsts Wells Mean Desire Causes Mankind Delight Perpetual Restless Inclination Moderates Acquisition Live Well

Author:Thomas Hobbes

“Hatred grows into insolence when we desire to excel the rest of mankind and imagine we do not belong to the common lot; we even severely and haughtily despise others as our inferiors.”

Desire Grows Common Imagine Mankind Hatred Despise Inferiors Insolence

Book:Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

Source: Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

“Darwin theorized that mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs"). Each of them split in half.”

Years Kind Desire Sex Ability Half Millions Mankind Activity Female Males Organs Splits Lacking Sexual Desire Reproducing

Book:Nothing Created Everything: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution

Source: Nothing Created Everything: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution

“Whoever desires, for his writings or himself, what none can reasonably contemn, the favour of mankind, must add grace to strength, and make his thoughts agreeable as well as useful. Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard.”

Writing Wells Desire Grace Mankind Regard Add Complaining Neglect Favour

Book:The Rambler: In Four Volumes..

Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes..

“No, I most certainly do not think advertising people are wonderful. I think they are horrible, and the worst menace to mankind, next to war; perhaps ahead of war. They stand for the material viewpoint, for the importance of possessions, of desire, of envy, of greed. And war comes from these things.”

People Thinking War Desire Next Wonderful Worst Mankind Materials Importance Greed Possession Envy Horrible Advertising Viewpoints Menace

Author:Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

“It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world; or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.”

World Mind Persons Desire Secret Mankind Ill Wit Vanity Disposition Scandal Inclination Converses Ill Will Ostentation

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“Grant that the idea of God is the most splendid single act of the creative human imagination, and that all his multiple faces and attributes correspond to some need and satisfy some deep desire in mankind; still, for the Inquirers, it is impossible not to conclude that this mystical concept has been harnessed rudely to machinery of the most mundane sort, and has been made to serve the ends of an organization which, ruling under divine guidance, has ruled very little better, and in some respects, worse, than certain rather mediocre but frankly manmade systems of government.”

Source: Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories & Other Writings

“I feel... an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may, at length, reach even the extremes of society: beggars and kings.”

Feels May Desire Mankind Kings Mass Extremes Length Beggar Ardent

Book:Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait

Source: Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait

“When the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon than whose industry or fortune has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance, luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon be convinced that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there remains little to be sought with solicitude or desired with eagerness.”

“He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state and wishes to have it accepted, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities.”

People May Has Beens Different States Facts Reality Seems Government Form Desire Wish Mankind Institutions Majority Appearance Accepted Satisfied Reform Semblance

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli