best quotations about
Desire |
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Quotations
 | Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 25 likes |
 | Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not. — Epicurus, 341-270 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 22 likes |
 | The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment. — Napoleon, 1769-1821, French Emperor 13 likes |
 | You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire. — Seneca, 5 AD-65 AD, Roman philosopher 12 likes |
| To make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires. — Epicurus, 341-270 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 11 likes |
 | In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. — Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer 9 likes |
 | Loss is not as bad as wanting more. — Lao-Tzu, 6th cent. BC, Chinese philosopher 8 likes |
 | Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires. — Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939, Austrian psychologist, founder of psychoanalysis 7 likes |
 | Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil. — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 6 likes |
 | There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less. — G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English writer & critic 6 likes |
 | Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. — Robert Frost, 1874-1963, American poet 6 likes |
 | I once had a thousand desires. But in my one desire to know you, all else melted away. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 6 likes |
 | A true Zen saying: “Nothing is what I want.” — Frank Zappa, 1940-1993, American musician 6 likes |
 | Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. — Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955, American self-help writer 6 likes |
 | Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. — Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, German philosopher 5 likes |
| There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 5 likes |
 | If your desires be endless, your cares and fears will be so too. — Dr. Thomas Fuller, 1654-1734, English physician and adage collector 5 likes |
 | The best time of a love affair, is when one goes up the stairs. — Georges Clemenceau, 1841-1929, French Prime Minister 5 likes |
| Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them. — Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939, Austrian psychologist, founder of psychoanalysis 5 likes |
 | But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin. — Aldοus Huxley, 1894-1963, English writer 5 likes |
| Of our desires some are natural and necessary, others are natural but not necessary; and others are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to groundless opinion. — Epicurus, 341-270 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 5 likes |
 | What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want. — Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American magazine editor 4 likes |
| To understand the limitation of things, desire them. — Lao-Tzu, 6th cent. BC, Chinese philosopher 4 likes |
| Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability. — Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, German philosopher 4 likes |
| We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack. — Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, German philosopher 4 likes |
 | That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires. — Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778, Swiss-French philosopher 4 likes |
 | I want a man who's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire? — Zsa Zsa Gabor, 1917-2016, Hungarian-American actress 4 likes |
 | If I had asked them what they had wanted, they would have said a faster horse. — Henry Ford, 1863-1947, American industrialist, founder of FORD 4 likes |
 | Inferior people desire wealth. The mediocre class desires wealth as well as respect. But, great people desire only respect. Respect itself is considered as wealth by great people. — Chanakya, 370-280 π.X., Indian teacher & philosopher 4 likes |
 | Life is not taking, it is desire. — Henry de Montherlant, 1895-1972, French writer 4 likes |
 | What is the arc of the plot of one's life? “I want! I want!” — Erica Jong, 1942-, American writer 4 likes |
 | The trouble with Buddhism: in order to free oneself of all desire, one has to desire to do so. — Henry Miller, 1891-1980, American writer 4 likes |
| Youth is not enough. And love is not enough. And success is not enough. And, if we could achieve it, enough would not be enough. — Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American magazine editor 3 likes |
| Love is an appetite which, like all other appetites, is destroyed for the moment by its gratification. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 3 likes |
 | You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. — Steve Jobs, 1955-2011, American businessman 3 likes |
 | People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. — George Orwell, 1903-1950, British writer 3 likes |
 | Anyone who studies present and ancient affairs will easily see how in all cities and all peoples there still exist, and have always existed, the same desires and passions. — Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469-1527, Italian political philosopher 3 likes |
 | Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 3 likes |
| I have already enjoyed too much; give me something to desire. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 3 likes |
 | I stop wanting what I am looking for, looking for it. — Antonio Porchia, 1885-1968, Italian-Argentinian poet 3 likes |
| He is rich that is satisfied. — Dr. Thomas Fuller, 1654-1734, English physician and adage collector 3 likes |
 | First you fuel the desire, then the desire will fuel you. — Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970, American self-help writer 3 likes |
| Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire brings a small amount of heat. — Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970, American self-help writer 3 likes |
| I don’t want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 3 likes |
 | The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, English poet & philosopher 3 likes |
 | Can one desire too much of a good thing? — William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, English poet & playwright ‐ As You Like It 3 likes |
 | How many desires are decorated with the name of wills. — Duc de Levis, 1764-1830, French politician & author of maxims 2 likes |
 | It is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire. — Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, English philosopher 2 likes |
 | Poor little thing! She’s gasping for love like a carp on a kitchen table gasping for water. — Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880, French writer 2 likes |
 | We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents. — Eric Hoffer, 1902-1983, American writer & philosopher 2 likes |
 | Often the best way to overcome desire is to satisfy it. — Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965, British writer 2 likes |
 | Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing. — Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963, American poet & writer 2 likes |
| Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 2 likes |
| He who has made a thousand things and he who has made none, both feel the same desire: to make something. — Antonio Porchia, 1885-1968, Italian-Argentinian poet 2 likes |
 | Humans have the remarkable ability to get exactly what they must have. But there is a difference between a “must” and a “want.” — Jim Rohn, 1930-2009, American self-help speker 2 likes |
| When you know what you want, and you want it bad enough, you'll find a way to get it. — Jim Rohn, 1930-2009, American self-help speker 2 likes |
 | It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want. — Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1945, American President [1936-1945] 2 likes |
 | Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade. — Marcel Proust, 1871-1922, French writer 2 likes |
| The desire to know your own soul will end all other desires. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 2 likes |
 | Whatever the heart desires, it purchases at the cost of soul. — Lawrence Durrell, 1912-1990, British writer 2 likes |
 | To want is to have a weakness. — Margaret Atwood, 1939 -, Canadian writer 2 likes |
 | At eight, he had once told his mother that he wanted to paint air. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 2 likes |
 | What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman. |
 | Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness. |
 | In society just as in the soul, when hierarchies abdicate, the appetites rule. |
| She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris. — Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880, French writer ‐ Madame Bovary |
| For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquility of mind, while we live here; because Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Fear, no more than without Sense. |
 | It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with the gods. |
 | Desires are the source of sorrow. |
 | Who does not ask for anything is that he expects everything. |
 | I don’t know why women want any of the things men have, when one of the things that women have is men. |
 | All sadism seems the delusional will of an impossible possession. |
 | People know what they want because they know what other people want. |
 | Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me from wishing it were. |
| All wishes, whatever their apparent content, have the same and unvarying meaning: “I refuse to be what I am.” |
 | Here is a guaranteed way to get more of what you want: want less. — Ashleigh Brilliant, 1933-, British cartoonist & epigrammatist |
| One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. |
 | He begins to die, that quits his desires. |
 | Desire, the only source of the world, desire, the only rigor that man has to know. — André Breton, 1896-1966, French writer, founder of Surrealism |
 | Don’t you know that we must always have a place where we never go but where we think we’d be happy if we did? |
 | We are not free as long as we desire, as we want, as we fear perhaps as long as we live. |
Quotes in Verse
 | The Heart wants what it wants or else it does not care. |
Funny Quotes
| All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. — Ashleigh Brilliant, 1933-, British cartoonist & epigrammatist |
 | For years I've nursed a secret desire to spend the Fourth of July in a double hammock with a swingin' redheaded broad … but I could never find me a double hammock. |
Ancient Greek
 | Excessive desires create excessive poverties. Μείζονες γαρ ορέξεις μείζονας ενδείας ποιεύουσιν. — Democritus, 470-370 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 7 likes |
 | Sorrow is not the result of poverty, but of desire. Ου πενία λύπην εργάζεται, αλλά επιθυμία. — Epictetus, 50-120 AD, Ancient Greek Stoic philosopher 6 likes |
 | Women know nothing excpet from what they want. Γυνή γαρ ουδέν οίδε πλην ό βούλεται. — Menander, 4th cent. BC, Ancient Greek dramatist (New Comedy) 5 likes |
 | But Zeus does not bring to accomplishment all thoughts in men's minds. Αλλ' ου Ζεὺς άνδρεσσι νοήματα πάντα τελευτά. — Homer, c. 800-750 BC, Ancient Greek Poet 4 likes |
| We all want to get rich but we cannot. Βουλόμεθα πλουτείν πάντες αλλ’ ου δυνάμεθα. — Menander, 4th cent. BC, Ancient Greek dramatist (New Comedy) 3 likes |
| Fierce desire for one thing blinds the soul to other things. Αι περί τι σφοδραί ορέξεις τυφλούσιν εις τάλλα την ψυχήν. — Democritus, 470-370 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 2 likes |
| He who desires more loses what he has now. Η του πλέονος επιθυμίη το παρεόν απόλλυσι. — Democritus, 470-370 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 2 likes |
Proverbs
 | If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. 4 likes |
