quotations about desire
Desire is a pain which seeks easement through possession.
JACK LONDON
The Kempton-Wace Letters
Desire is oft the morning star of Love,
And Love the Hesper of fulfilled Desire.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
MARCEL PROUST
Remembrance of Things Past
Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.
GASTON BACHéLARD
The Psychoanalysis of Fire
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
Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
The world is not a burden; we make it a burden by our desires. When the desires are removed, the world is as light as a feather on an elephant's back.
BABA HARI DASS
Ashtanga Yoga Primer
The strongest of all psychic forces in the world is unsatisfied desire.
JOHN COWPER POWYS
A Glastonbury Romance
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
You are currently experiencing desire; otherwise, you wouldn't be reading these words. Even if you are reading them at the behest of someone else, you are motivated by your desire to please that person. And if you stop reading, you will not do so because you have stopped desiring but because your desires have changed.
WILLIAM BRAXTON IRVINE
On Desire
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
Wants, like birds, flutter till they have found a place of rest.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you
AMY LOWELL
"The Letter", Pictures of the Floating World
When I desire you a part of me is gone.
ANNE CARSON
Eros the Bittersweet
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
DENIS DIDEROT
Elements of Physiology
The very urge to get rid of desire is still desire, is it not?
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Think on These Things
Sex ... or lack thereof ... is at the center of everyone's identity, and once you've cracked someone's desires, you understand them in full.
ARIANNE COHEN
Marie Claire Magazine, March 2008
We are the mediocre,
we are the half givers,
we are the half lovers,
we are the savourless salt.
Break the hard crust
of complacency.
Quicken in us
the sharp grace of desire.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER
attributed, Soul Weavings
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"
Desire rules over men, those half-gods vain,
And is the tyrant of their heart and brain.
FERNAND GREGH
"Desire"