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Desire Quotes

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Desire Quotes

“Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism!”

Art Desire Artist Effects Terrible Prove Temptation Idealism Sinister

Book:I Married a Communist

Source: I Married a Communist

“The man who is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who has cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced all desires, he is the greatest of men.”

Knows Men Desire Cutting He Man Temptation Ties Credulity

Book:Sacred Books of the East: Including Selections from the Vedic Hymns, Zend-Avesta, Dhammapada, Upanishads, the Koran, and the Life of Buddha

Source: Sacred Books of the East: Including Selections from the Vedic Hymns, Zend-Avesta, Dhammapada, Upanishads, the Koran, and the Life of Buddha

“Rise above the deceptions and temptations of the mind. This is your duty. Learn to become wise. Desire nothing, give up all desires and be happy. The real spiritual progress of the meditator is measured by the extent to which they achieve inner tranquility and freedom from desire.”

Giving Mind Real Spiritual Desire Wise Progress Achieve Duty Giving Up Temptation Deception Tranquility Rise Above Spiritual Progress

Author:Sivananda

“There are those who say that temptation can be barricaded beyond the door. The ones who think that stray desires can be driven out of the heart like the moneychangers from the temple. Maybe they can, if you patrol your weak points day and night, don't look, don't smell, don't dream.”

Ifs Thinking Looks Heart Dream Desire Night Doors Weak Smell Driven Temptation Temples Day And Night Weak Points

Book:Written On The Body

Source: Written On The Body

“Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.”

Source: Our job is to make life worth living, 1949-1950

“St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.”

Men Reason Desire Natural Sin Teach Excited Criminals Senses Temptation Adam Consent Serpent Propensity Augustine

Book:Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

Source: Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

“the most dangerous temptations are not due to the active, sudden flames of desire, 'the lusts of the flesh,' but to the disinclinations of the flesh, its indolence and sluggishness, our tendency to become creatures of habit.”

Desire Dangerous Habit Creatures Active Dues Flesh Lust Tendencies Temptation Flames Inaction Indolence Creatures Of Habit

Author:Sigrid Undset

“The protection of a ten-year-old girl from her father's advances is a necessary condition of social order, but the protection of the father from temptation is a necessary condition of his continued social adjustment. The protections that are built up in the child against desire for the parent become the essential counterpart to the attitudes in the parent that protect the child.”

Source: Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world

“Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions--tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?... If nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece--must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?”

Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne: Containing The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy ... [etc.] ; with a Life of the Author Written by Himself

“Jesus has many lovers of His kingdom of heaven, but he has few bearers of His Cross. Many desire His consolation, but few desire His tribulation. He finds many comrades in eating and drinking, but He finds few hands who will be with Him in His abstinence and fastingBut those who love Jesus purely for Himself, and not for their own profit or convenience, bless Him as heartily in temptation and tribulation and in all other adversities as they do in time of consolation. And if He never sent them consolation, they would still bless and praise Him.”