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Home / Quotes / Desires

Desires

by Patricia Petro

desiresA desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired . . . is one of the earliest, as well as the keenest, dispositions discovered in the heart of man. —John Adams

It’s so much better to desire than to have. —Anouk Aimee

Dwell not upon thy weariness, thy strength shall be according to the measure of thy desire. —Arab proverb

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit. —Aristotle

Most of us are consumed with our own thoughts and desires and are not always thinking about what other people may want. This is not necessarily being egocentric; it is just being human. —Bo Bennett

I’ve wandered over many lands,
And reaped withal no fruit,
I’ve laid my pride of rank aside,
And pressed my baffled suit,
At stranger boards, like shameless crow,
I’ve eaten bitter bread,
But fierce desire, that raging fire,
Still clamours to be fed.
—Bhartrhari, Against the Desire of Worldly Things

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

The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul. —Bible, Proverbs 13:19

One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life. —Alexander A. Bogomoletz

Desire, like the atom, is explosive with creative force. —Paul Vernon Buser

Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform. —Chanakya

Pearls lie not on the seashore. If thou desirest, one thou must dive for it. —Chinese proverb

Let your desires be ruled by reason. —Cicero

Plant the seed of desire in your mind, and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment. —Robert Collier

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. —Confucius

O, she is the antidote to desire. —William Congreve

One must desire something to be alive. —Margaret Deland, O magazine, September 2002

Desire awakens only those things that are thought possible. —Rene Descartes

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them. —George Eliot

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. —Epicurus

If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it. —Brendan Francis

If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few. —Benjamin Franklin

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. —Benjamin Franklin

It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it. —Benjamin Franklin

Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied. —Henry George

Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death. —Kahlil Gibran

You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world. —Sheila Graham

The hard part is not getting what you want, but wanting what you get. —Katherine Hepburn

In moderating, not in satisfying desires, lies peace. —Reginald Heber

In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace. —Ben Hecht

By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act. —Claude Adrien Helvetius

The hard part is not getting what you want, but wanting what you get. —Katherine Hepburn

He begins to die who quits his desire. —George Herbert

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything. —Napoleon Hill

When your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve. —Napoleon Hill

The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing. —Winifred Holtby, O Magazine, September 2002

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation. —Elbert Hubbard

He that flatters you more than you desire either has deceived you or wishes to deceive. —Italian proverb

Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us. —Samuel Johnson

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy. —Samuel Johnson

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments. —Samuel Johnson

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness. —Nicole Kidman

He who desires naught will always be free. —E. R. Lefebvre

You can have anything you want—if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose. —Abraham Lincoln

Desires are just waves in the mind. You know a wave when you see one. A desire is just a thing among many. I feel no urge to satisfy it, no action needs to be taken on it. Freedom from desire means this: the compulsion to satisfy is absent. —Nisargadatta Maharaj

What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. —Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

That’s the funny thing about knowing you can’t have something; it makes you desperate. —Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them. —John Stuart Mill

A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires. —Petrarch

How helpless we are, like netted birds, when we are caught by desire! —Belva Plain

Human behavior flows from three main sources: Desire, emotion, and knowledge. —Plato

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes. —Marcel Proust

We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us. —François Rabelais

Every human mind is a great slumbering power until awakened by a keen desire and by definite resolution to do. —Edgar F. Roberts

The waves of desire in the world-ocean are intoxicating wine. —Sri Guru Granth Sahib

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. —Carl Sandburg

Nought’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content. —William Shakespeare, Macbeth

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it. —George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903

Burning desire to be or do something gives us staying power—a reason to get up every morning or to pick ourselves up and start in again after a disappointment. —Marsha Sinetar

A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied immediately another comes. In the interval which separates two desires, a perfect calm reigns in the mind. It is at this moment freed from all thought, love, or hate. Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves. —Swami Sivananda

Desire nothing, give up all desires and be happy. —Swami Sivananda

Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire. —Patti Smith

We desire most what we ought not to have. —Publilius Syrus

It is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully. —Mother Teresa, A Gift for God

Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds. —Saint Teresa of Avila

Boredom: The desire for desires. —Leo Tolstoy

A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs. —Mark Twain, Following the Equator

Manifest plainness. Embrace simplicity. Reduce selfishness. Have few desires. —Lao Tzu, The Way of Lao Tzu

Thought gives rise to desire. —Rig Veda

As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it. I’ve found that to be absolutely axiomatic. —Andy Warhol

A man desires praise that he may be reassured, that he may be quit of his doubting of himself; he is indifferent to applause when he is confident of success. —Alec Waugh

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul. —Rebecca West

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