Desire Quotes - Page 28

• Much is being said about peace; and no man desires peace more ardently than I. Still I am yet unprepared to give up the Union fora peace which, so achieved, could not be of much duration.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Peace, Giving Up, Men

  Abraham Lincoln, Don Edward Fehrenbacher (1977). “Abraham Lincoln, a Documentary Portrait Through His Speeches and Writings”, p.263, Stanford University Press

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• You already know I desire that neither Father or Mother shall be in want of any comfort either in health or sickness while they live.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Mother, Father, Comfort

  Abraham Lincoln (2009). “Abraham Lincoln: Selected Speeches and Writings”, p.130, Library of America

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• Such a mind we must desire to see in a woman,--a mind that stirs without irritating you, that arouses but does not belabour, amuses and yet subtly instructs.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Women, Mind, Doe

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• Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthropy of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire.

  Eric Hoffer

  Race, Magic, Fading

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• It is cheering to note that [Martin] Luther (1524) did not see why schools should not be fun as well: "Now since the young must leap and jump, or have something to do, because they have a natural desire for it which should not be restrained (for it is not well to check them in everything) why should we not provide for them such schools, and lay before them such studies?

  Martin Luther

  Education, Cheer, Fun

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• Young men have strong passions and tend to gratify them indiscriminately. Of the bodily desires, it is the sexual by which they are most swayed and in which they show absence of control...They are changeable and fickle in their desires which are violent while they last, but quickly over: their impulses are keen but not deep rooted.

  Aristotle

  Strong, Passion, Men

  Aristotle (2012). “Rhetoric”, p.84, Courier Corporation

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• My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
  How comes it then that this her cold so great
  Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
  But harder grows the more I her entreat?

  Edmund Spenser

  Love Is, Ice, Fire

  Edmund Spenser (1957). “Minor poems”

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• You need not be proud of me.... I'm only being active till you can be again--it isn't such a great desire on my part to serve theworld and I'll fall back into habits of sloth quite easily!

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Marriage, Fall, Sloth

  Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor Roosevelt (1982). “Love, Eleanor: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends”, Doubleday Books

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• An improper art aims at exciting in the way of comedy the feeling of desire but the feeling which is proper to comic art is the feeling of joy.

  James Joyce

  Art, Joy, Feelings

  James Joyce, Kevin Barry, Conor Deane (2000). “Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing”, p.102, Oxford University Press, USA

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• The greatest poverty is not to live
  In a physical world, to feel that one's desire
  Is too difficult to tell from despair.

  Wallace Stevens

  Despair, World, Poverty

  Wallace Stevens (1959). “Poems”

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• There is never enough time to say our last word-the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submission, revolt.

  Joseph Conrad

  Enough Time, Our Love, Lasts

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• The desire to create literature leads to frights, grunts, and coy looks.

  Mason Cooley

  Looks, Literature, Grunt

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• Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to negate.

  Albert Camus

  Despair, Nihilism, Negation

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.57, Vintage

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• To many men much-wandering hope comes as a boon, but to many others it is the deception of vain desires.

  Sophocles

  Hope, Men, Deception

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• Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.

  Blaise Pascal

  Philosophical, Writing, Heart

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pensées”, p.46, Courier Corporation

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• We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real.

  Blaise Pascal

  Real, Vanity, Hypocrisy

  Blaise Pascal (1910). “Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works”

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• Minds are cluttered from the age of six with the values of others-values which bear little relation to their own private capacities, needs and desires.

  Marya Mannes

  Mind, Age, Bears

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• Blaming the imperialists nowadays is obviously absurd, as is blaming the Americans, who obviously don't have the slightest desire to control anything in the Middle East. The American desire is to get out as quickly as possible and the general view is that now that the Cold War is over and the Soviets are no longer a problem, we have no reason to stay there, let's get out. They will have to confront their own problems. Israel provides a useful scapegoat but it's a limited one.

  Bernard Lewis

  War, Blame, Cold

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• Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past without looking forward to the future.

  Samuel Johnson

  Past, Mind, Sorrow

  Samuel Johnson (1791). “The Rambler”, p.270

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• The true antidote to greed is contentment. If you have a strong sense of contentment, it doesn't matter whether you obtain the object of your desire or not. Either way, you are still content.

  Bill Vaughan

  Strong, Greed, Contentment

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• Hee begins to die, that quits his desires.

  George Herbert

  Quitting, Dies

  George Herbert (1874). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose”, p.315

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• Humble Hearts have humble desires.

  George Herbert

  Heart, Humble, Humble Heart

  George Herbert (1853). “The poetical works of George Herbert [and The synagogue, by C. Harvey.]. With life, critical diss., and notes, by G. Gilfillan”, p.292

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• The desire to play has always been in me. I remember my first experience at about four or five of really dying to sing and dying to play that came from no one telling me to do so.

  Alicia Keys

  Play, Dying, Four

  "Soul sister number one" by Stephanie Merritt, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2004.

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