Wish quotes
4.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside wish — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can; when we cannot do all we would wish."
"Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but ... a powerful measure of desire for aggression had to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment."
"There is nothing everyone is so afraid of as being told how vastly much he is capable of. You are capable of - do you want to know? - you are capable of living in poverty; you are capable of standing almost any kind of maltreatment, abuse, etc. But you do not wish to know about it, isn't that so? You would be furious with him who told you so, and only call that person your friend who bolsters you in saying: 'No, this I cannot bear, this is beyond my strength, etc."
"I wish I knew where I was going. Doomed to be carried of the spirit into the wilderness, I suppose. I wish I could be more moderate in my desires, but I cannot, and so there is no rest."
"Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness."
"I can't overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be."
"If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles."
"I wish you all the joy that you can wish."
"If you wish another to keep your secret, first keep it to yourself."
"Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but in anything important (such as sex, death, and religion), you must have mirth or you will have madness."
"I think we are affected by others in all kinds of ways. I do understand what it's like to wish to control the conditions under which we can be affected by other human beings, but none of us really are."
"I frankly confess that even if it were possible I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive for salvation."
"Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes."
"He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power."
"The world seems to belong to those who reach out and grab it with both hands. It belongs to those who do something rather than just wish and hope and plan and pray, and intend to do something someday, when everything is just right."
"If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful."
"When a man has reached a condition in which he believes that a thing must happen because he does not wish it, and that what he wishes to happen never will be, this is really the state called desperation."
"The time has passed for our sensations in painting to be whispered. We wish them in the future to sing and re-echo upon our canvasses in deafening and triumphant flourishes."
"The large majority of people are asleep and do not wish to wake up."
"The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish."
