quotations about desire
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
Forbid us something, and that thing we desire; but press it on us hard, and we will flee.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
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
I surrender all control
To the desire that consumes me whole
And leads me by the hand to infinity
That lies in wait at the heart of me
DEPECHE MODE
"Higher Love"
We become decrepit with age, but not so Desire.
Infirmity assails us, the skin wrinkles,
The hair whitens, the body becomes crooked,
Old age comes on.
Desire alone grows younger every day.
BHARTRHARI
"Verses on Renunciation"
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it.
BOB DYLAN
"Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar"
A desire scorned and neglected is an enemy lying in wait with bared dagger.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
She's the dollars
She's my protection
Yeah, she's the promise
In the year of election
Ah, sister, I can't let you go
I'm like a preacher stealing hearts in a traveling show
For the love or money, money
Desire
Desire
U2
"Desire", Rattle and Hum
Human longings are perversely obstinate; and to the man whose mouth is watering for a peach, it is of no use to offer the largest vegetable marrow.
GEORGE ELIOT
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
God plants no yearning in the human soul that he does not intend to satisfy.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
Even when we get what we wish, it is not ours.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
Plunge into the world, and then, after a time, when you have suffered and enjoyed all that is in it, will renunciation come; then will calmness come. So fulfill your desire for power and everything else, and after you have fulfilled the desire, will come the time when you will know that they are all very little things; but until you have fulfilled this desire, until you have passed through that activity, it is impossible for you to come to the state of calmness, serenity, and self-surrender.
VIVEKANANDA
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Desire is the creator; desire is the destroyer.
HARI DAS BABA
attributed, Be Here Now
There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.
PLATO
The Republic
That's the funny thing about knowing you can't have something. It makes you desperate.
STEPHENIE MEYER
Breaking Dawn
Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
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