quotations about desire
To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve. Shall man's basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law: such a condition of things can never obtain: "ask and receive."
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
You had better return home and make a net, than go down to the river and desire to get the fishes.
CHINESE PROVERB
A desire scorned and neglected is an enemy lying in wait with bared dagger.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The History of Rasselas
That's the funny thing about knowing you can't have something. It makes you desperate.
STEPHENIE MEYER
Breaking Dawn
The moth unwitting rushes on the fire,
Through ignorance the fish devours the bait,
We men know well the foes that lie in wait,
Yet cannot shun the meshes of desire.
BHARTRHARI
"Against the Love of Beauty"
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
Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.
GASTON BACHéLARD
The Psychoanalysis of Fire
There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.
PLATO
The Republic
Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Desire me and want me
That's all I'll ever ask of life
That you will someday come to me
And say that you love me as I love you
SAM COOKE
"Desire Me", The Man Who Invented Soul
God plants no yearning in the human soul that he does not intend to satisfy.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I surrender all control
To the desire that consumes me whole
And leads me by the hand to infinity
That lies in wait at the heart of me
DEPECHE MODE
"Higher Love"
Temptation, break the vow
Cut flesh from the sacred cow
Unchain the tiger, kiss the flame, feel your desire
DEF LEPPARD
"Pearl of Euphoria", Slang
The more wild and incredible your desire, the more willing and prompt God is in fulfilling it, if you will have it so.
COVENTRY PATMORE
The Rod
The very urge to get rid of desire is still desire, is it not?
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Think on These Things
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
We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
MARCEL PROUST
Remembrance of Things Past
Everything desires not like but unlike: for example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the full, the full the void, and so of all other things; for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas like receives like receives nothing from like.
PLATO
Lysis