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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"I am not the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds, I am not a sacrifice on their altars."
"Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims - as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force - he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason."
"People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools."
"While he was watching the ships, Buttercup shoved him with all her strength remaining. [...] Down went the man in black. [...] "You can die too for all I care," she said, and then she turned away. Words followed her. Whispered from far, weak and warm and familiar. "As...you...wish...""
"I would not wish to imply that most industrial accidents are due to intemperance. But, certainly, temperance has never failed to reduce their number."
"It's so nice to know where you're going, in the early stages. It almost rids you of the wish to go there."
"Ironically enough, in the same way that fear brings to pass what one is afraid of, likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes... Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself."
"In all relationships, there are always aching holes and that's where the impossible wishes come into it."
"Beyond what we wish and what we fear may happen we have another life, as clear and free as a mountain stream."
"I wish I could buy you for what you are really worth and sell you for what you think you're worth. I sure would make money on the deal."
"Most people wish for riches, but few people provide the definite plan and burning desire which pave the road to wealth."
"Even under the British there were hostile groups. There were clashes. But, as we found out later, these were clashes provoked by those who had no wish to let us live together - on the eve of the Partition. The policy of keeping us divided was always followed by foreigners, even after the Partition. If Indians and Pakistanis had been together...I don't say as confederated countries but as neighboring and friendly countries...like Italy and France, for example ...believe me, both of us would have progressed much further."
"Thus I am not able to exist either with you or without you; and I seem not to know my own wishes."
"There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible."
"It is difficult to set bounds to the price unless you first set bounds to the wish."
"Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay."
"Every child begins the world again."
"If you wish to draw off the people from a bad or wicked custom, you must beat up for a march; you must make an excitement, do something that everybody will notice."
"There are things that happen so quickly. A better cameraman can capture them, but if the light is not bright and you hoist up your camera by the time you've dialed in your settings. There are eye blink moments where you're like "Aaahhhh, I wish," but those are too many to catalogue. Nothing really sticks out."
"A homing pigeon must love her home; otherwise she will not wish to return to it."
