DESIRE QUOTES IV

quotations about desire

Why can I never set my heart on a possible thing?

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Left Hand of Darkness


Nothing is more human than for man to desire naturally things impossible to his nature. It is, indeed, the property of a nature which is not closed up in matter like the nature of physical things, but which is intellectual or infinitized by the spirit. It is the property of a metaphysical nature. Such desires reach for the infinite, because the intellect thirsts for being and being is infinite.

JACQUES MARITAIN

Approaches to God


What is it men in women to require?
The lineaments of gratified desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of gratified desire.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Gnomic Verses


To the soul's desires
The body listens
What the flesh requires
Keeps the heart imprisoned

DEPECHE MODE

"When the Body Speaks"


Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.

NAPOLEON HILL

Think and Grow Rich


Want is a growing giant whom the coat of have was never large enough to cover.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The Conduct of Life


Do not desire what you can't acquire.

KEN ALSTAD

Savvy Sayin's


The strong desires of man's insatiate breast may stand possess'd
Of all that earth can give; but earth can give no rest.

FRANCIS QUARLES

Emblems


And desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.

BIBLE

Ecclesiastes 12:5


Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.

WALTER LIPPMANN

A Preface to Politics


People know what they want because they know what other people want.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Minima Moralia


Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Meditations


We are puppets of our subconscious desires.

CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON

The Shadow of the Wind


Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you.

FRANK HERBERT

Chapterhouse: Dune


How is the anxious soul of man befool'd in his desire,
That thinks an hectic fever may be cool'd in flames of fire?

FRANCIS QUARLES

Emblems


A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.

JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER

Aphorisms on Man


For prudence is of the mind, but desire is of the soul, and while his brain of to-day whispered wariness, voices in his heart of long ago shouted commands that he knew he must obey with joy.

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

Pan's Garden

Tags: Algernon Blackwood


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"


If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets.

FRANK HERBERT

Dune


Is it the gods who set this fire in our hearts, or do we each make our fierce desire into a god?

URSULA K. LE GUIN

Lavinia