quotations about desire
A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
Men over-estimate what they desire
Through ignorance of it: credulous Pursuit
Thinks his betrothed, Possession, is divine;
But finds she is a mortal like himself.
HENRY ABBEY
"Karagwe"
Want is a growing giant whom the coat of have was never large enough to cover.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
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
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
A desire scorned and neglected is an enemy lying in wait with bared dagger.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
People know what they want because they know what other people want.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
BIBLE
James 1:15
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
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
While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
Desire is the creator; desire is the destroyer.
HARI DAS BABA
attributed, Be Here Now
When you believe, or are led to believe, you are unable to act upon the greatest desires of the soul, the result is mental and spiritual enslavement.
IYANLA VANZANT
Acts of Faith
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"
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
Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
Forbid us something, and that thing we desire; but press it on us hard, and we will flee.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
God plants no yearning in the human soul that he does not intend to satisfy.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan