quotes about Desire
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May God so fill us today with the heart of Christ that we may glow with the divine fire of holy desire.
-- A. B. SimpsonSource : A. B. Simpson (1984). “Days of Heaven on Earth: A Daily Devotional to Comfort and Inspire”, Moody Publishers
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Traveling is one expression of the desire to cross boundaries.
-- A. B. Yehoshua -
I believe it was the great ogre philosopher Gary who observed that complexity is, generally speaking, an illusion of conscious desire. All things exist in as simple a form as necessity dictates. When a thing is labeled 'complex,' that's just a roundabout way of saying you're not observant enough to understand it.
-- A. Lee MartinezSource : A. Lee Martinez (2007). “In the Company of Ogres”, p.133, Macmillan
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Coherence and closure are deep human desires that are presently unfashionable. But they are always both frightening and enchantingly desirable. "Falling in love," characteristically, combs the appearances of the word, and of the particular lover's history, out of a random tangle and into a coherent plot.
-- A. S. Byatt -
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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.
-- A.S.A. HarrisonSource : A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.107, Penguin
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Maybe I'm not good for you. Maybe what I feel is wrong. Because I did love Ashton. She was all I needed... but never did I feel the uncontrollable desire to get her underneath me. Never did I make up reasons to get her to wrap her legs around me so I could feel her pressed up against me. Never. He swallowed hard. "Never did I think about being inside her
-- Abbi Glines -
Do you know what it is to be a man violently in love? To live for a woman's smiles and laughter, to hunger for her touch until life itself seems impossible without it, to desire her as you desire to breathe?
-- Abigail Reynolds -
Much will always wanting be To him who much desires.
-- Abraham Cowley -
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I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having lived in it.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.
-- Abraham Maslow -
There is, first, the desire for strength, for achievement, for adequacy, for confidence in the face of the world, and for independence and freedom. Secondly, we have what we may call the desire for reputation or prestige
-- Abraham Maslow -
Whoever desires this world must seek its knowledge, and whoever desires the next must seek its knowledge.
-- Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi -
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You don't need fancy highbrow traditions or money to really learn. You just need people with the desire to better themselves.
-- Adam Cooper -
It's really seeing student involvement … as a variety of opportunities that are appropriate for each given student and responsive to their individual needs and their desires for their educational experience.
-- Adam Fletcher -
The future will be like the past, in the sense that, no matter how amazing or technologically advanced a society becomes, the basic human rhythm of petty malevolence, sordid moneygrubbing, and official violence, illuminated by occasional bursts of loyalty or desire or tenderness, will go on.
-- Adam Gopnik -
As a pastor, I have a deep desire to lead people to God and encourage people to pray, read the Bible, and carry their faith into every part of their lives.
-- Adam HamiltonSource : Adam Hamilton (2013). “When Christians Get It Wrong”, p.110, Abingdon Press
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Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.
-- Adela Florence Nicolson -
Each thing tends to move towards its own nature. I always desire happiness which is my true nature. My nature is never a burden to me. Happiness is never a burden to me, whilst sorrow is.
-- Adi Shankara -
It is true that we may desire much more. But let us use what we have, and God will give us more.
-- Adoniram JudsonSource : ADONIRAM JUDSON (1854). “RECORDS OF THE LIFE, CHARACTER, AND ACHIEVEMENTS”, p.106
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We must use what we have to invent what we desire.
-- Adrienne RichSource : Adrienne Rich (2003). “What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)”, p.172, W. W. Norton & Company
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A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you... where and when and how you are living and might live, it is a wick of desire.
-- Adrienne Rich -
True freedom is to be free from the desire to be free from anything.
-- Adyashanti -
Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?
-- Agatha Christie -
Our belief in education is unbounded, our reverence for it is unfaltering, our loyalty to it is unshaken by reverses. Our passionate desire, not so much to acquire it as to bestow it, is the most animated of American traits.
-- Agnes Repplier -
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When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador.
-- Agnes Repplier -
When the desire ain't on me I don't need help. When it is on me I don't want any. See? Like the old fellah that never mended his roof. Said on a wet day he couldn't do it and on a dry day it was as good as anybody's.
-- Agnes Sligh TurnbullSource : Agnes Sligh Turnbull (1952). “The Gown of Glory”
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Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
-- Agnes Smedley -
Hamas' battle is against the Zionist occupation in the Palestinian land. Hamas has no desire to change its battlefield.
-- Ahmed Yassin -
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Even if you fulfill your hearts desire, by sacrificing something important, you may not necessarily be happy. Happiness doesn’t come in one form, it determined by your own heart.
-- Ai Yazawa -
Remember you dont meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you want anything, you wont find it.
-- Ajahn Chah -
Geometry alone is not enough to portray human desires, expressions, aspirations, joys. We need more.
-- Akira Yoshizawa -
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There is pleasure when a sore is scratched, But to be without sores is more pleasurable still. Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires, But to be without desires is more pleasurable still.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna -
A kiss is a lusty dollop of dessert to be served with desire and savored with passion.
-- Al Pacino -
Desires make slaves out of kings and patience makes kings out of slaves.
-- Al-Ghazali -
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True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.
-- Alain de Botton -
Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
-- Alain de Botton -
I claim my heart's desire, and I choose my direction. I will attain my chosen goal.
-- Alan Cohen -
Everything will change when your desire to move on exceeds your desire to hold on.
-- Alan Cohen -
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There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating.
-- Alan Kay -
In order to be able to make it, you have to put aside the fear of failing and the desire of succeeding. You have to do these things completely and purely without fear, without desire. Because things that we do without lust of result are the purest actions we shall ever take.
-- Alan Moore -
I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.
-- Alan Rickman -
There was a desire to see me being nasty and horrible, and of course that's not really me
-- Alan Sugar -
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We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves.
-- Alan Watts -
I like having the freedom to dress as I desire.
-- Alber Elbaz -
I certainly can't complain. I work six days a week, if not seven, and eighteen hours out of twenty-four - fortunately, with a great deal of pleasure. Why? Because I only do something if I want to do it; I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, moving, inventing.
-- Alber Elbaz -
Happiness implied a choice, and within that choice a concerted will, a lucid desire.
-- Albert Camus -
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Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to negate.
-- Albert Camus -
What is human in me is not what is best in me. What is human in me is that I desire, and to obtain what I desire, I believe I would crush anything that stood in my way.
-- Albert Camus -
A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment.
-- Albert Einstein -
I have no particular desire to live. I have no particular desire to be killed. It is a matter of indifference to me. I do not think I am altogether right.
-- Albert Fish -
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I always had a desire to inflict pain on others and to have others inflict pain on me. I always seemed to enjoy everything that hurt.
-- Albert Fish -
Man tends always to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible exertion.
-- Albert J. NockSource : "Our Enemy, the State" by Albert J. Nock (p. 59), 1935.
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If you truly desire happiness, seek and learn how to serve.
-- Albert Schweitzer -
Her cheeks were flushed. She caught hold of the Savage's arm and pressed it, limp, against her side. He looked down at her for a moment, pale, pained, desiring, and ashamed of his desire. He was not worthy, not... Their eyes for a moment met. What treasures hers promised! A queen's ransom of temperament. Hastily he looked away, disengaged his imprisoned arm. He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of.
-- Aldous Huxley -
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VOID is filled with intrigue, suspense, and smoldering desire. This story will keep you turning the page until the very end.
-- Aleatha Romig -
A man desires praise that he may be reassured, that he may be quit of his doubting of himself; he is indifferent to applause when he is confident of success.
-- Alec Waugh -
It is the thing that is most remote from the world in which we ourselves live that attracts us most. We are under the spell of what is distant from us. It is not our nature to desire passionately what is near at hand.
-- Alec Waugh -
Many people with a wild desire to act prove failures on the stage, their inclinations are greater than their powers. Rarely is it the other way ...
-- Alec-Tweedie -
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The world is always greater than your desires; plenty is never enough.
-- Aleksandar Hemon -
A strong desire derives a person straight through the hardest rock.
-- Aleksis Kivi -
Man is an animal which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfillment of animal desires.
-- Alexander Graham Bell -
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
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The desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; ... the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.
-- Alexander Pope -
Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence...To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that 'something more' is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.
-- Alexander Schmemann -
Man is a hungry being. But he is hungry for God. Behind all the hunger of our life is God. All desire is finally a desire for Him.
-- Alexander SchmemannSource : Alexander Schmemann (1973). “For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy”, p.14, St Vladimir's Seminary Press
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How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.
-- Alexander SmithSource : Alexander Smith (2012). “Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.223, tredition
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Men praise poverty, as the African worships Mumbo Jumbo--from terror of the malign power, and a desire to propitiate at.
-- Alexander Smith -
Every man's road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.
-- Alexander Smith -
No, I slept as I always do when I am bored and have not the courage to amuse myself, or when I am hungry and have not the desire to eat.--The Count of Monte Cristo
-- Alexandre Dumas -
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In contrast to the knowledge that keeps man in a passive quietude, Desire dis-quiets him and moves him to action. Born of Desire, action tends to satisfy it, and can do so only by the 'negation,' the destruction or at least the transformation, of the desired object: to satisfy hunger, for example, the food must be destroyed or, in any case, transformed. Thus all action is 'negating'.
-- Alexandre KojeveSource : Alexandre Kojève (1980). “Introduction to the Reading of Hegel”, p.4, Cornell University Press
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To be well-educated is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends.
-- Alfie KohnSource : Alfie Kohn (2004). “What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?: And More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies”, p.10, Beacon Press
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I have a great need to learn what the norm is by dealing with what is not the norm... with the grotesque and the fantastic.
-- Alfred Brendel -
My will to live completely overcame my desire to win
-- Alfred HajosSource : "The Joy of Six: great Olympians" by Andy Bull, www.theguardian.com. August 07, 2008.
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And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson -
There can be no doubt that the knowledge of logic is of considerable practical importance for everyone who desires to think and to infer correctly.
-- Alfred Tarski -
I desire to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works.
-- Alfred the Great -
The delight that consumes the desire, The desire that outruns the delight.
-- Algernon Charles Swinburne -
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To fight against one's desires is the greatest of all fights.
-- Ali ibn Abi Talib -
The one who has no control over his desires has no control over his mind.
-- Ali ibn Abi Talib -
You should desire for others what you desire for yourself, and hate for others what you hate for yourself. Do not oppress, just as you do not like to be oppressed. Do good to others just as you would like good to be done to you. Dislike in yourself what you dislike in others. Accept that treatment from others which you would like others to accept from you. Do not say to others what you do not like to be said to you.
-- Ali ibn Abi Talib -
Life is made up of desires that seem big and vital one minute, and little and absurd the next. I guess we get what's best for us in the end.
-- Alice Hegan Rice -
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Taking friendships for granted is one of the surest ways of ending them. Unless nourished, they tend to wither and die. Unless we earnestly desire its continuance we should never start a friendship any more than we would a love affair.
-- Alice Hegan Rice -
If it weren't for the unconventionality of my desires, my mind might never have been forced to reckon with my body.
-- Alison Bechdel -
There is a great force in renunciation of power that those who are blinded by the lust for domination cannot understand because those who truly love do not desire power.
-- Alison Croggon -
It is a sin when I place myself deliberately in the place of temptation… either because I enjoy the prospect or because I’m not determined enough in my desire to overcome it.
-- Alistair Begg -
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Unfortunately, preachers who distort God's Word are all too common today. Sometimes this springs from a sincere desire to soften hard hearts, but hearts aren't changed by compromise.
-- Alistair Begg -
According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for.
-- Allen Tate -
This awareness instills a fierce desire to protect that heritage and - in doing so - to educate Americans in the meaning and importance of our pivotal documents.
-- Allen Weinstein -
Desire is endless and unappeasable, is most intense where most forbidden, and is never far from despair.
-- Allen Wheelis -
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I have the desire to work as an actress, but I have no ambition to be a star.
-- Ally Sheedy -
We live in an era of consumerism and it's all about desire-based consumerism and it has nothing to do with things we actually need.
-- Aloe BlaccSource : Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
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He who desires nothing but God is rich and happy.
-- Alphonsus Liguori -
My Jesus! What a lovable contrivance this holy Sacrament was - that You would hide under the appearance of bread to make Yourself loved and to be available for a visit by anyone who desires You!
-- Alphonsus Liguori -
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A soul who loves Jesus Christ desires to be treated the way Christ was treated-desires to be poor, despised, and humiliated.
-- Alphonsus Liguori -
The likeness of Your Church, O Lord, is that woman who went behind and touched the hem of Your garment, saying within herself: 'If I do but touch His garment I shall be whole' (Mt. 9:21). So the Church confesses her wounds, but desires to be healed.
-- Ambrose -
REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.
-- Ambrose Bierce -