Desire quotes
4.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside desire — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors."
"Liberty consists in doing what one desires."
"As you can see, even when [Adolf] Hitler desires to speak for peace, he cannot dispense with threats. This is symptomatic."
"My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility."
"Our problem is not that we desire too much but too little."
"In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give."
"That 'simple desire' to share something meant that we could enter the world of language without words, where everything is always clear and there is no danger of being misinterpreted."
"Negative desires can cause no evil if you do not allow yourself to be seduced by them."
"Perfectionism is not as much the desire for excellence, as it is the fear of failure couched in procrastination ."
"Poetry can open locked chambers of possibiity, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire."
"The superior man does what is proper to the station in which he is; he does not desire to go beyond this. In a position of wealth and honor, he does what is proper to a position of wealth and honor. In a poor and low position, he does what is proper to a poor and low position."
"We should aim rather at leveling down our desires than leveling up our means."
"Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit."
"Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."
"I have an intense desire to return to the womb. Anybody's."
"There is false humility and genuine humility and between them, there is a desire of the practitioner to become humble."
"The Greek epigram intimates that the force of love is not shown by the courting of beauty, but where the like desire is inflamed for one who is ill-favored."
"Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison."
"I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires."
"Desire backed by faith knows no such word as impossible."
