DESIRE QUOTES VII

quotations about desire

The busy mint
Of our laborious thoughts is ever going,
And coining new desires; desires not knowing
Where next to pitch; but, like the boundless ocean,
Gain, and gain ground, and grow more strong by motion.

FRANCIS QUARLES

Emblems


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


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


Desire is a pain which seeks easement through possession.

JACK LONDON

The Kempton-Wace Letters


Wishes people the world.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


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


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"


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


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


We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.

THOMAS HOBBES

Leviathan


The strongest of all psychic forces in the world is unsatisfied desire.

JOHN COWPER POWYS

A Glastonbury Romance


I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you

AMY LOWELL

"The Letter", Pictures of the Floating World


Desire, like the atom, is explosive with creative force.

PAUL VERNON BUSER

attributed, Webster's Quotations


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


We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.

MARCEL PROUST

Remembrance of Things Past


It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays


Even when we get what we wish, it is not ours.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus


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"


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