quotations about desire
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.
ECKHARD TOLLE
The Power of Now
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
People think they know what they want but they generally don't. Sometimes if they're lucky they'll get it anyways.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
No Country for Old Men
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you
AMY LOWELL
"The Letter", Pictures of the Floating World
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
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
The very urge to get rid of desire is still desire, is it not?
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Think on These Things
To bliss unknown by lofty soul aspires,
My lot unequal to my vast desires.
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
"Know Yourself", A Supplement to the Miscellaneous Works of the Late Dr. Arbuthnot
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
The grave is sooner cloy'd than men's desire.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
There is no natural desire of what is unnatural.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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
Whatsoever is the object of any man's Appetite or Desire; that is it which he for his part calleth Good: and the object of his Hate and Aversion, evil.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
What desire can be contrary to nature, since it was given to man by nature itself?
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
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
Wants, like birds, flutter till they have found a place of rest.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", The Ivory and the Horn
Always there is desire,
only the shape
of what is desired shifts,
each love giving way to another.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Lullabye"
The more unharmonious and inconsistent your objects of desire, the more inconsequent, inconstant, unquiet, the more ignoble, idiotical, and criminal yourself.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man