quotations about desire
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
We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
MARCEL PROUST
Remembrance of Things Past
Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
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
Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.
GASTON BACHéLARD
The Psychoanalysis of Fire
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
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
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you
AMY LOWELL
"The Letter", Pictures of the Floating World
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
Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Wants, like birds, flutter till they have found a place of rest.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Desire is oft the morning star of Love,
And Love the Hesper of fulfilled Desire.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
The strongest of all psychic forces in the world is unsatisfied desire.
JOHN COWPER POWYS
A Glastonbury Romance
The very urge to get rid of desire is still desire, is it not?
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Think on These Things
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
He is fortunate who wants the things he knows he can have.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
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
But how long before this desperate wickedness overruns the qualms of good people? Before the desire for the smell of cooking meat, the softness of flesh, breaks us all?
CHRIS ABANI
Hands Washing Water
When I desire you a part of me is gone.
ANNE CARSON
Eros the Bittersweet
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"