Desire Quotes - Page 37

• True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven: It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes soon as granted fly; It liveth not in fierce desire.

  Walter Scott

  True Love, Men, Fire

  Sir Walter Scott (1833). “The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott: With a Biography, and His Last Additions and Illustrations”, p.345

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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.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Pain, Vanity, Names

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• All I desire for my own burial, is not to be buried alive; but how or where, I think, must be entirely indifferent to every rational creature.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Death, Thinking, Alive

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.365, Oxford University Press

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• It is to be presumed, that a man of common sense, who does not desire to please, desires nothing at all; since he must know that he cannot obtain anything without it.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Common Sense, Doe

  Lord Chesterfield (2008). “The Modern Chesterfield”, p.250, Wildside Press LLC

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• Bright and illustrious illusions! Who can blame, who laugh at the boy, who not admire and commend him, for that desire of a fame outlasting the Pyramids by which he insensibly learns to live in a life beyond the present, and nourish dreams of a good unattainable by the senses?

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Dream, Boys, Pyramids

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• The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it. But we cannot of ourselves estimate the degree of our success in what we strive for; that task is left to others. With the desire for excellence comes, therefore, the desire for approbation. And this distinguishes intellectual excellence from moral excellence; for the latter has no necessity of human tribunal; it is more inclined to shrink from the public than to invite the public to be its judge.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Judging, Intellectual, Excellence

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• To mourn deeply for the death of another loosens from myself the petty desire for, and the animal adherence to life. We have gained the end of the philosopher, and view without shrinking the coffin and the pall.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Death, Animal, Views

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• She who desires to see, desires also to be seen.

  Miguel de Cervantes

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• Our continual desire for praise ought to convince us of our mortality, if nothing else will.

  Josh Billings

  Convince Us, Praise, Mortality

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• It has frequently been said that we never desire what we think absolutely inapprehensible: it is however true that some of our sharpest agonies are those in which the object of desire is regarded as both possible and imaginary.

  T. S. Eliot

  Thinking, Agony, Said

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• Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

  P. D. James

  Heart, Want, Might

  P. D. James (2011). “Devices and Desires”, p.505, Vintage

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• Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

  George Orwell

  Art, Attitude, Book

  George Orwell, Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: An age like this, 1920-1940”, Harvill Secker

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• So slowly the hot elephant hearts
  grow full of desire,
  and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
  hiding their fire.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Heart, Fire, Elephants

  D.H. Lawrence (1961). “Selected Poems”

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• I must consider more closely this cycle of good and bad days which I find coursing within myself. Passion, attachment, the urge to action, inventiveness, performance, order all alternate and keep their orbit; cheerfulness, vigor, energy, flexibility and fatigue, serenity as well as desire. Nothing disturbs the cycle for I lead a simple life, but I must still find the time and order in which I rotate.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Bad Day, Passion

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• For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wise, Use, Logic

  Michel de Montaigne (1850). “Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.215

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• There is a certain kind of person who is so dominated by the desire to be loved for himself alone that he has constantly to test those around him by tiresome behavior; what he says and does must be admired, not because it is intrinsically admirable, but because it is his remark, his act. Does not this explain a good deal of avant-garde art?

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Doe, Avant Garde

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• The day effort ceased, I also ceased. Because you cannot exist without effort, and you cannot exist without desire, and you cannot exist without striving.

  Rajneesh

  Effort, Enlightenment, Strive

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• The Buddha also counseled the monks and nuns to avoid wasting any precious time by engaging in idle conversation, oversleeping, pursuing fame and recognition, chasing after desires, spending time with people of poor character, and being satisfied with only a shallow understanding of the teaching.

  Nhat Hanh

  Teaching, Character, People

  "Old Path White Clouds". Book by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1987.

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• The desire to be a free person is very worthwhile. To be free means you are no longer the victim of fear, anger, craving, or suspicion.

  Nhat Hanh

  Fear, Anger, Mean

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2009). “Calming the Fearful Mind: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.58, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• No thought about the past or future can pull you away from your present peace and joy. The universe exists in this present moment. No desire can pull you away from this present peace, not even the desire to become a Buddha or the desire to save all beings. Know that to become a Buddha and to save all beings can only be realized on the foundation of the pure peace of the present moment.

  Nhat Hanh

  Peace, Future, Past

  Various, Ledi Sayadaw, Bhikkhu Khantipalo, Nyanaponika Thera, Padmasiri de Silva (2012). “Collected Wheel Publications Volume XVI: Numbers 231–247”, p.109, Buddhist Publication Society

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• The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issuesnot from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.

  Anton Chekhov

  Soul, Charity, Helping

  "Note-Book of Anton Chekhov". Book by Anton Chekhov, 1921.

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• Are your desires purely selfish? Do your tastes run to a grand home, automobiles, fine clothes, an abundance of amusements, and so forth? If so, look around you at people who have such things in superabundance. Are they any happier, do you think, than you are? Are they any better morally? Are they any stronger physically? Are they better liked by their friends than you are by your friends? ... Carnegie said, Millionaires rarely smile. This is substantially true.

  B. C. Forbes

  Running, Selfish, Home

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• Morality is the fruit of religion: to desire the former without the latter is to desire an orange without an orange-tree.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Orange Trees, Fruit, Morality

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• A man's drive for profit should be prompted by the desire to give charity.

  Nachman of Breslov

  Men, Giving, Charity

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• To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her; for indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and aimable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes man.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Passion, Men, Years

  'Idylls of the King' (1842-85) 'Guinevere' (1859) l. 472

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