Showing posts with label Desire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Desire. Show all posts

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Quotes about Wants and Desire

Image of face and desirable lips
Desire
How few are our real wants, and how easy is it to satisfy them? Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable. Julius Charles and Augustus William Hare

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. John Cage

Those desires that do not bring pain if they are not satisfied are not necessary; and they are easily thrust aside whenever to satisfy them appears difficult or likely to cause injury. Epicurus  

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. Socrates

The superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety of the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty of those that at any time can be felt. George Santayana 

Man belongs wherever he wants to go. Scot Joplin

No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, and execrated. Epictetus

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. Theodore Roosevelt

I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be;  in a light better than any light that ever shone;  in a land no one can define or remember, only desire’ and the forms divinely beautiful.  Edward Burne-Jones

I treasure this strange combination found in very few persons: a fierce desire for life as well as a lucid perception of the ultimate futility of the quest. Madeleine Gobeil

The constant demands of the heart and the belly can allow man only an incidental indulgence in the pleasures of the eye and the understanding. George Santayana 

Man’s unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in. Sydney J Harris

Some might consider him as too fond of fame; for the desire of glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion. Tacitus

Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you wish you weren’t. Terry Wimpole  

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves. Mary Wollstonecraft

It is hard to fight against impulsive desire; whatever it wants it will buy at the cost of the soul. Heraclitus 

There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it. LA Bruyere 

I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.  Edward, Duke of Windsor

I wish, by the way, that I knew who separated time from eternity; there seems only one thing to me, and I always feel that I am in eternity. Georgiana Burne-Jones 

Since the creation of the world there has been no tyrant like intemperance, and no slave cruelly treated as his. William Lloyd Garrison 

Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them. Adlai Stevenson 

It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy those which follow it. LA Rochefoucauld 

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else. Thomas Carlyle

It is equally bad when one speeds on the guest unwilling to go, and when he holds back one who is hastening. Rather one should befriend the guest who is there, but speed him when he wishes.  Homer

If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few. Benjamin Franklin 

Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their property so that they may more perfectly respect it. Gilbert K Chesterton

We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason. LA Rochefoucauld 

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish. Quintilian

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which are exact opposites. Bertrand Russell 

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. William Blake

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. Richard Bach

Other people’s appetites easily appear excessive when one doesn't share them. Andre Gide 

Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. Eric Hoffer 

Men take only their needs into consideration; never their abilities. Napoleon 

When a man has been intemperate so long that shame no longer paints a brush upon his cheek, his liquor generally does it instead. George Dennison Prentice 

All impediments in fancy’s course are motives of more fancy. Shakespeare 

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy. Samuel Johnson

Appetite is an instinct thoughtfully implanted by providence as a solution to the labor question. Ambrose Bierce 

Needs must where the Devil drives. Proverb

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Quotes about Avarice

Image of a man at a desk with piles of paper money
Avarice
Though avarice will prevent a man from being necessitous and poor, it generally makes him to timorous to be wealthy. Thomas Paine  

What’s the matter with the world? Why, there ain't but one thing wrong with every one of us, and that’s "selfishness". Will Rogers

The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulcher of all his other passions, as they successively decay. Charles Caleb Colton 

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. Somerset Maugham

I wish to become rich, so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little, like those kind hearted, fat, benevolent people do. Mark Twain

Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations; others mistake great future advantages for small present interests. Rochefoucauld

A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. Don Quinn

Avarice is a fine absorbing passion, and many a fellow is as happy with his arm around his bank account as he was sleigh riding with his first girl. Finley Peter Dunne

Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself. Julio Courtenay 

A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his abilities, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their supra-personal value. Albert Einstein

There are some sordid minds, formed of slime and filth, to whom interest and gain are what glory and virtue are to superior souls; they feel no other pleasure but to acquire money. Jean DE La Bruyere

A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful, but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health. Clarence Day

I could not possibly count the gold digging ruses of women; not if I had ten mouths, not if had ten tongues. Ovid 

A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment. George Eliot

Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. Walter Lippmann

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.  Oscar Wilde

There is held to be no surer test of civilization than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognizably poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilization altogether. Havelock Ellis 

Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future. Rochefoucauld

I would rather be rich affluent and greedy and go to hell when I die, than live in poverty on this earth. Al Capone

He who lives only for himself is truly dead to others. Syrus 

Avarice is a cursed vice. Offer a man enough gold, and he will part with his own small hoard of food, however great his hunger. Lucan

The moral peril to humanity of thoughtlessly accepting these conveniences of materialism with their inherent disadvantages as constituting a philosophy of life is now becoming apparent. For the implications of this disruptive materialism are that human beings are nothing but bodies, animals, machines.  Aldous Huxley