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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"Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence."
"People of peace, men and women of desire, such is the splendor of the Temple in which you will one day have the right to take your place. Such privilege should astonish you less, however, than your ability to commence building it down here, your ability, in fact, to adorn it at every moment of your existence. Remember the saying 'as above, so below', and contribute to this by making 'as below, so above'."
"The world is not a burden; we make it a burden by our desires. When the desires are removed, the world is as light as a feather on an elephant's back."
"Memory is not what the heart desires."
"It goes without saying that the desire to accomplish the task with more confidence, to avoid wasting time and labour, and to spare our experimental animals as much as possible, made us strictly observe all the precautions taken by surgeons in respect to their patients."
"He who does not desire much more from things than knowledge of them easily makes peace with his soul."
"Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women."
"It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement."
"I don't want realism. I want magic!"
"Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why then should we desire to be deceived?"
"We live alone in our cluttered psyches, possessed by our entrenched beliefs, our fatuous desires, our endless contradictions - and like it or not we have to put up with this in one another."
"I'm completely against [feminism]. I have no desire to give up my privileges."
"For love is no part of the dreamworld. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel."
"Let's face it. We're undone by each other. And if we're not, we're missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact."
"Without hope we live in desire."
"We are told that talent creates opportunity, yet it is desire that creates talent."
"It's not who jumps the highest - it's who wants it the most"
"Show me a man of average ability but extraordinary desire and I'll show you a winner every time."
"I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto 'to live well you must live unseen"
"Civility does not ...mean the mere outward gentleness of speech cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good."
