quotations about lust
A satyr, which is half man and half beast, is the emblem of lust; to show that its followers prostitute the reason of man to gratify the appetites of a beast.
J. N. FUNCK
attributed, Day's Collacon
What was the point in satin and lace if it didn't make a man struggle to speak?
ALEXANDRA IVY
Embrace the Darkness
Love lives with Nature, not with lust.
Go find her in the flowers.
JOHN CLARE
"Stanzas", Selected Poems
Lust is what it is; it never lies.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Flirt
O lust, thou infernal fire, whose fuel is gluttony; whose flame is pride, whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoke is infamy; whose ashes are uncleanness; whose end is hell.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
BIBLE
Matthew 5:28
Lust has no eyes.
TAMIL PROVERB
Lust hath these three companions: the first, blindness of understanding; the second, hardness of heart; the third, want of grace.
ST. BASIL
attributed, Day's Collacon
So long as lust, whether of the world or flesh, smells sweet in our nostrils, so long we are loathsome to God.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
attributed, The Seven Deadly Sins: A Companion
Lusts are like agues; the fit is not always on, and yet the man is not rid of his disease; and some men's lusts, like some agues, have not such quick returns as others.
HERBERT SPENCER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Lust is a desire against reason, a furious and unbridled appetite, which killeth all good notions in man's mind, and leaveth no place for virtue.
THOMAS JEVON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Lustful Desire (although 'twere rather fit
To some brute creature to attribute it)
Shall be presented in the second place,
Because it shrouds a vile deformed face
Beneath love's vizard, and assumes that name,
Hiding its own fault with the other's blame.
GEORGE WITHER
"Of Desire, or Lust", Poems
Lust is the base of most physical ills, and like a tapeworm in the system, it feeds on our best energies and vitality.
J. USHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ... ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.
MARQUIS DE SADE
attributed, Lust: A Dictionary for the Insatiable
What's wrong with lust or covetousness, or concupiscence or libido? Aren't they natural? Yes indeed -- viciously natural. For in this context they signify disordered or discordant appetites, especially the disordered or discordant sexual appetite.
EDMUND HILL
Being Human: A Biblical Perspective
Beware of lust; it corrupteth both the body and the mind.
ZOROASTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit,
Confounded in that Babel of the pit;
Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild,
Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child;
Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts,
Before the play, or else between the acts;
Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds
Should spring such short and transitory kinds.
JONATHAN SWIFT
"To Mr. Congreve", The Works of Jonathan Swift: Miscellaneous poems
It is the grand battle of life, to teach lust the limits of divine law, to break it into the taste of bread of heaven, and make it understand that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out of the mouth of God.
J. B. BROWN
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical
Capricious, wanton, bold, and brutal Lust
Is meanly selfish; when resisted, cruel;
And, like the blast of Pestilential Winds,
Taints the sweet bloom of Nature's fairest forms.
JOHN MILTON
Comus: A Masque
I know the very difference that lies
'Twixt hallowed love and base, unholy lust;
I know the one is as a golden spur,
Urging the spirit to all noble aims;
The other but a foul and miry pit,
O'erthrowing it in the midst of its career;
I know the one is as a living spring
Of virtuous thoughts, true dealings, and brave deeds--
Nobler than glory, and more sweet than pleasure--
Richer than wealth, begetter of more excellence
Than aught that from this earth corrupt takes birth,
Second alone in the fair fruit it bears
To the unmixed ore of true devotion:
I know that lust is all of this, spelt backwards;
Fouler than shame, and bitterer than sorrow,
More loathly than most abject penury--
Nor hath it fruit or bearing to requite it,
Save sick satiety and good men's scorn.
FANNY KEMBLE
The Star of Seville: A Drama in Five Acts