Vices

"We grow like flowers, and bear desire, The odor of the human flowers."

"The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow."

"Oh! could I throw aside these earthly bands That tie me down where wretched mortals sigh— To join blest spirits in celestial lands!"

"As the hart panteth after the water-brooks."

"Velle suum cuique est, nec voto vivitur uno."

"The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment."

"Nil cupientium Nudus castra peti."

"Passing into higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant, and fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man."

"If one is able to become deeply aware of the negative consequences of desires, one will not become involved in them. This is what is meant by renouncing desire."

"If people were told: what makes carnal desire imperious in you is not its pure carnal element. It is the fact that you put into it the essential part of yourself—the need for Unity, the need for God—they wouldn’t believe it. To them it seems obvious that the quality of imperious need belongs to the carnal desire as such. In the same way it seems obvious to the miser that the quality of desirability belongs to gold as such, and not to its exchange value."

"Boredom: the desire for desires."

"On the new earth, enjoyment will replace wanting as the motivating power behind people's actions. Wanting arises from the ego's delusion that you are a separate fragment that is disconnected from the power that lies behind all creation."

"In the beginning the body causes difficulties because it claims its rights without realizing that it is cutting off its own head by not surrendering."

"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."

"The rain drenches not my heart spring ignites not my desires and in the name of love these days no longer any furor does stir within."

"Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires."

"Had doting Priam checked his son's desire, Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire."

"Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow."

"Can one desire too much of a good thing?"

"I do desire we may be better strangers."

"I have Immortal longings in me."

"But man desires to continue in sin."

"Is then he who has a clear argument from his Lord similar to him to whom his evil conduct is made fair-seeming; and they follow their low desires."

"Have you seen he who has taken as his god his (own) desire, and God has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after God? Then will you not be reminded?"

"But if they do not respond to you – then know that they only follow their [own] desires. And who is more astray than one who follows his desire without guidance from God? Indeed, God does not guide the wrongdoing people."

"It will not be in accordance with your vain desires nor the vain desires of the People of the Book. Whoever does evil, will be requited for it and will not find for himself besides God a guardian nor a savior."

"So is it other than the religion of Allah they desire, while to Him have submitted (all) those within the heavens and earth, willingly or by compulsion, and to Him they will be returned?"

"I salute my desires with a bow., were it not for them to come and play mind would be empty just like me."

"I like desires like children and their plays that tease me now and then into knowing life."

"I desire the things which will destroy me in the end."

"The really clever thing, in affairs of this sort, is not to win a woman already desired by everyone, but to discover such a prize while she is still unknown."

"Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata."

"Science ... cannot conceive of any means of achieving that escape from desires we call "contentment" otherwise than through the satisfaction of those desires; it has not yet learnt that there is no limit to the multiplication of desires, nor that, since different people's desires are often mutually incompatible, an indefinite multiplication of desires increases conflict as well as discontent."

"The church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds. Its practice, its remedy is castration. It never inquires, “How can a desire be spiritualized, beautified, deified.” In all ages it has laid the weight of discipline in the process of extirpation. The extirpation of sensuality, pride, lust of dominion, lust of property, and revenge. But to attack the passions at the roots means attacking life itself at its source. The method of the church is hostile to life."

"It is the desire for "the more" that prevents clear thinking, whereas if we are discontent, not because we want something, but without knowing what we want; if we are dissatisfied with our jobs, with making money, with seeking position and power, with tradition, with what we have and with what we might have; if we are dissatisfied, not with anything in particular but with everything, then I think we shall find that our discontent brings clarity. When we don't accept or follow, but question, investigate, penetrate, there is an insight out of which comes creativity, joy."

"Desire is sad."

"Normal men retain their childish longing for a woman to mother them. At adolescence a new desire is added. They wanta girl to allure them. When you put these two together, you have the typical male yearning Wonder Woman satisfies."

"It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires."

"I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading."

"To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves."

"We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. But, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered. The fear of our desires keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance."

"How often, for example, a young man desires affection from someone who cannot give it to him, who has it not to give! From such a desire as that comes often a great deal of sadness, jealousy and much other ill-feeling. You will say that such a desire is natural; undoubtedly it is, and affection which is returned is a great source of happiness. Yet if it cannot be returned, a man should have the strength to accept the situation, and not allow sorrow to be caused by the unsatisfied desire."

"The First Truth is an assertion that all manifested life is sorrow, unless man knows how to live it... the Cause of Sorrow is always desire. If a man has no desires, if he is not striving for place or power or wealth, then he is equally tranquil whether the wealth or position comes or whether it goes. He remains unruffled and serene.... Being human, he will of course wish for this or that, but always mildly and gently, so that he does not allow himself to be disturbed."

"What we should desire creeps silently inside us and replaces what we really desire. ... We take jobs, make compromises, and settle down for the long wait, for the arrival of the future that will bring the reward of happiness we so justly deserve for our sacrifice of the pleasures of the moment. The process is so slow we scarcely notice the substitution of plastic for flesh. We forget how the body sang when it ran free; how it rejoiced in stretching, rolling, skipping, dancing, walking, eating, loving, bounding, leaping, resting.Gradually the body begins to change to protect itself against the intrusion of joy or sorrow. It armors itself against the threat of playfulness and spontaneity. ... The working body is complete when it is thus armed against those emotions that would threaten the primacy of the work ethic and the pattern of delayed gratification upon which it rests."

"What the English call “comfortable” is something endless and inexhaustible. Every condition of comfort reveals in turn its discomfort, and these discoveries go on for ever. Hence the new want is not so much a want of those who have it directly, but is created by those who hope to make profit from it."

"The more desires one has, the more they will suffer. Our mere existence is suffering. In our life we distinguish pleasure from suffering and tend to cling to pleasure. This is our inherent nature. But suffering is inseparable from pleasure, for one is never found without the other. Therefore, the more we seek pleasure and avoid suffering, the more entangled we become in the duality of pleasure and suffering. Be content with our state of being. If we are not satisfied with our state of being we will be slaves to the five desires which stem from the five senses."

"There is a cause of suffering. Suffering is due to attachment. It is the desire to have and control things. It can take many forms: craving of sensual pleasures; the desire for fame; the desire to avoid unpleasant sensations, like fear, anger or jealousy."

"The ultimate meaning of desire is death."

"Remember there is always a limit to self-indulgence, none to restraint. ... Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication but in the deliberate and voluntary restriction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment, and increases the capacity for service."

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."