Lust quotes
465 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside lust — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I wasn't in love with her. And she didn't love me. For me the question of love was irrelevant. What I sought was the sense of being tossed about by some raging, savage force, in the midst of which lay something absolutely crucial. I had no idea what that was. But I wanted to thrust my hand right inside her body and touch it, whatever it was."
"Lust should be stifled, for it cannot lead to truth."
"Where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice."
"Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, Their wisdom by their rage of will, Their treasure is their only trust; And cloake' d craft their store of skill. But all the pleasure that I find Is to maintain a quiet mind."
"Then I heard someone laugh. I wished I didn't know whose laugh it was, but I knew Will's laugh just like I knew he had a small scar right above his left elbow. You couldn't be reluctantly lust-ridden for someone without noticing stuff about them."
"Oh, I have felt lust. And I've indulged lust. But no other woman has turned me into another person."
"What's wrong with lust? You fancy your neighbor's husband so what are you supposed to do? Poke your eyes out so that you can't see him anymore? Acting on it is maybe a sin ... but my God, just lusting after someone? Is that so bad?"
"The result of this bestial lust is an indiscriminate and promiscuous splaying of all of my energies- wanting all, I accomplish nothing; desiring everything, I satisfy nothing and am satisfied by nothing."
"The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one's life towards a goal. Without such a goal, chastity is bound to become ridiculous. Chastity is the sine qua non of lucidity and concentration."
"The agenda in sexual activity, whether it's appropriate or not, has to do with lust, affection, passion, love, but the agenda in sexual harassment is not any of that. It is power, control, dominance. The tool is the same on both, but the agenda is completely different. That's what distinguishes the two."
"Which is scarier-- lust or temptation?"
"Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity."
"...the whole universe is through and through the playing of love in every shade of the word's use, from animal lust to divine charity."
"Craving for power is not a vice of the body, consequently it knows none of the limitations imposed by a tired or satiated physiology upon gluttony, intemperance and lust"
"If you lust after someone and have an absurd and overwhelming need to protect them, then the best way to deal with the situation is to marry the person."
"You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; They were not such a plague when I was young; What else have I to spur me into song?"
"Life was created in the valleys. It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down."
"But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to bea sect or scion.... It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will."
"Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining."
"One sin, I know, another doth provoke. Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke."
