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Desire Quotes

“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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“I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.”

KnowsMenLittlesSometimesDesirePrinciplesKnowledgeUselessSuperficialMaximsSuperficial Knowledge
Book:La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims
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“Science is an intellectual journey, and to me, it's not the destination, it's the journeyto get there. It's a way of thinking and it's an intellectual curiosity, a desire to know how the world works, and to know what the fundamental principles of the world are, and to know our place in it. I think once we stop asking questions like "what is the age of the universe," or "how are the instructions of DNA carried out on a microscopic level," once we stop asking questions like that, we're dead.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWayAgeDesireUniverseLevelsPrinciplesKnow HowJourneyIntellectualAskingFundamentalsCuriosityDestinationInstructionDnaWay Of ThinkingAsking QuestionsFundamental PrinciplesIntellectual Curiosity
Author:Alan Lightman
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“What does purpose mean? It means the deepest desire for our short lives to mean something. . . . To speak a language of purpose is to return to first principles and to be able to answer, in plain English, the plain questions of Why? Why should we chip in to help someone else? Why should we defer gratification? Why should we care about the long term? Why should we trust anyone who seems to be limiting our ability to do what we want?”

WantShouldFirstsMeanLongDoeHelpingSeemsCareAbleDesirePurposeSpeakLanguageTermAbilityAnswersPrinciplesReturnIntentionLong TermChipsGratificationShort LifePlain English
Author:Eric Liu
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“It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had authority to enact.”

WritingFirstsMayDesireViewsPrinciplesOughtEssentialsAuthorityCustomsDictatorNoveltyAttainmentEndeavourBreaking RulesBeauty Within
Book:Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings
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“To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old; to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.”

KindTruthDesireCertainNumbersPrinciplesIgnoranceProofVarietyJust OnePhenomenonFalsehoodHypothesisAdaptingScruplesOverload
Book:A Treatise of Human Nature
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“Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great- grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who invent stories and attack their innocent parents or desire them sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility.”

ChildrenHas BeensStillsStoriesRealityDesireParentResponsibilityPrinciplesTheoryCreaturesAdultsVictimBlameInnocentCrueltyWickedProtectedGrandparentBlindnessSexuallyCraftyGreat Grandparents
Book:The Untouched Key: Tracing Childhood Trauma in Creativity and Destructiveness
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“Vanity, or to call it by a gentler name, the desire of admiration and applause, is, perhaps, the most universal principle of humanactions.... Where that desire is wanting, we are apt to be indifferent, listless, indolent, and inert.... I will own to you, under the secrecy of confession, that my vanity has very often made me take great pains to make many a woman in love with me, if I could, for whose person I would not have given a pinch of snuff.”

IfsPersonsMadePainDesireNamesGivenPrinciplesUniversalPraiseVanityIf I CouldAdmirationConfessionIndifferentSecrecyApplauseSnuff
Author:Lord Chesterfield
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