Desire quotes

“His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.” Lois McMaster Bujold

“Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.” Lois McMaster Bujold

“What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.” Charlie Chaplin

“It is hard to contend against one's heart's desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.” Heraclitus

“Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” Socrates

“Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires.” Lao Tzu

“There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontentment. And there is no greater disaster than greed.” Lao Tzu

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires, seek discipline and find your liberty.” Frank Herbert

“If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it.” Paulo Coelho

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.” Paulo Coelho

“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” Robert Frost

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.” Nelson Mandela

“Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” Confucius

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” Confucius

“Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.” Sigmund Freud

“I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.” Abraham Lincoln

“Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.” Abraham Lincoln

“I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.” Stephen Hawking

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” Plato

“Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.” Coco Chanel

“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.” Aristotle

“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.” Aristotle

“Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.” Aristotle

“All men by nature desire knowledge.” Aristotle

“The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.” Aristotle

“The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse - as a luxury befitting a young man.” Stendhal

“Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.” Aldous Huxley

“We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Yes, love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by Allah given to lift from earth our low desire.” Lord Byron

“It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.” Lord Byron