Desire quotes
4.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside desire — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Let him that desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction."
"The ambitious climb high and perilous stairs, and never care how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up their fear of a fall."
"There's no prayer like desire."
"A dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. However moribund, it is not without effect for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, fill baffling silences."
"I had a desire to prove to myself that I was actually in control - that I wasnt a puppet."
"It is easy enough to arouse in a listener a desire for what is honorable; for in every one of us nature has laid the foundations or sown the seeds of the virtues. We are born to them all, all of us, and when a person comes along with the necessary stimulus, then those qualities of the personality are awakened, so to speak, from their slumber."
"No one can have all he desires."
"Good listeners have a huge advantage. For one, when they engage in conversation, they make people 'feel' heard. They 'feel' that someone really understands their wants, needs and desires. And for good reason; a good listener does care to understand."
"It is apparent that only a certain kind of person will want to make ethnographic films, It will, above all, be those who sense the profound affinity that exists between the film medium and a desire to understand people."
"Want, or desire, arises when you are not happy. Have you seen this? When you are very happy then there is contentment. Contentment means no want."
"He never complicates a desire by overthinking it, unlike Mirabelle, who spins a cocoon around an idea until it is immobile."
"Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire."
"Do not desire, for what you desire you get, and with it comes terrible bondage. It is nothing but bringing "noses on us," as in the case of the man who had three boons to ask. We never get freedom until we are self-contained. "Self is the Saviour of self, none else.""
"Seek no praise, no reward, for anything you do. No sooner do we perform a good action than we begin to desire credit for it. No sooner do we give money to some charity than we want to see our names blazoned in the papers. Misery must come as the result of such desires."
"Nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts."
"These lights, this brightness, these clusters of human hope, of wild desire—I shall take these lights in my fingers. I shall make them bright, and whether they shine or not, it is in these fingers that they shall succeed or fail."
"I have seen only yoU, I have admired only yoU, I desire only You"
"Fear is the fatal killer of desire."
"The fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain."
"Is your fear of failure greater than your desire to succeed?"
