quotations about desire
Through their proper knowledge
Creatures of Discernment forsake that Desire
Through which lustful creatures
Go to misfortune.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka
There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it.
BOB DYLAN
"Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar"
To bliss unknown by lofty soul aspires,
My lot unequal to my vast desires.
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
"Know Yourself", A Supplement to the Miscellaneous Works of the Late Dr. Arbuthnot
While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Is it the gods who set this fire in our hearts, or do we each make our fierce desire into a god?
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Lavinia
Forbid us something, and that thing we desire; but press it on us hard, and we will flee.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
Human psychology has a near universal tendency to let belief be coloured by desire.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
You had better return home and make a net, than go down to the river and desire to get the fishes.
CHINESE PROVERB
Desire is the creator; desire is the destroyer.
HARI DAS BABA
attributed, Be Here Now
That's the funny thing about knowing you can't have something. It makes you desperate.
STEPHENIE MEYER
Breaking Dawn
Disdain to warm thee at lust's smoky fires,
Scorn, scorn to feed on thy old bloat desires:
Come, come, my soul, hoist up thy higher sails,
The wind blows fair; shall we still creep like snails,
That glide their ways with their own native slimes?
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
BIBLE
James 1:15
What desire can be contrary to nature, since it was given to man by nature itself?
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
Seen by himself, Desire appears the least well-favoured of the Gods: but when he is in Love's company, the two can hardly be distinguished.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
Two hearts fading like a flower
And all this waiting for the power
For some answer to this fire
Sinking slowly
The water is higher
Desire
RYAN ADAMS
"Desire", Demolition
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion; and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
MARCEL PROUST
Remembrance of Things Past
I am still concerned with primitive desire, as it exists in man, but in the form in which man shows his affinity to his animal ancestors.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Analysis of Mind
We are never further from our wishes than when we fancy we possess the object of them.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Even when we get what we wish, it is not ours.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus