Desiring Quotes
-
Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.
Plato
-
Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
George Bernard Shaw
-
She had long since found peace. And Frederick, from her passionately loved bridegroom, from her worshipped young husband, had become second only to God on her list of duties and forbearances. There he hung, the second in importance, a bloodless thing bled white by her prayers. For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness. She wanted to stay like that. She wanted to shut out everything that would remind her of beautiful things, that might set her off again longing, desiring...
Elizabeth von Arnim
-
Thus Gotama [Buddha] walked toward the town to gather alms, and the two samanas recognized him solely by the perfection of his repose, by the calmness of his figure, in which there was no trace of seeking, desiring, imitating, or striving, only light and peace.
Hermann Hesse
-
Desiring always to be in mourning, he clothed himself with night.
Victor Hugo
-
Love is all around you like the air and is the very breath of your being. But you cannot know it, feel its unfeeling touch, until you pause in your busy-ness, are still and poised and empty of your wanting and desiring. When at rest the air is easily offended and will flee even from the fanning of a leaf, as love flees from the first thought. But when the air or love moves of its own accord it is a hurricane that drives all before it.
Barry Long
-
A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, in desiring attaining himself, helps others to attain.
Confucius
-
Whatever suffering there is in this world,all arises from desiring only myself to be happy.And whatever joy there is in this world,all arises from desiring to share my happiness with everyone.
Gautama Buddha
-
Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.
Rene Descartes
-
I am dead because I have no desire,
I have no desire because I think I possess,
I think I possess because I do not try to give;
Trying to give, we see that we have nothing;
Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves,
Trying to give ourselves, we see that we are nothing,
Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become,
Desiring to become, we live.
Rene Daumal
-
Participation in the dance was entirely voluntary, a mental vow to worship the Mystery in this manner being expressed by a man ardently desiring the recovery of a sick relative; or surrounded by an enemy with escape apparently impossible; or, it might be, dying of hunger … since some inscrutable power had swept all game from forest and prairie. Others joined in the ceremony in the hope and firm belief that the Mystery …would grant them successes against the enemy and consequent eminence at home.
Edward S. Curtis
-
A common fallacy: to imagine a measure will be easy because we have private motives for desiring it.
George Eliot
-
Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They want authority, not outlook.
John Ruskin
-
The pain of loneliness is one way in which he wants to get our attention. We may be earnestly desiring to be obedient and holy. But we may be missing the fact that it is here, where we happen to be at this moment and not in another place or another time, that we may learn to love Him - here where it seems He is not at work, where He seems obscure or frightening, where He is not doing what we expected Him to do, where He is most absent. Here and nowhere else is the appointed place. If faith does not got to work here, it will not work at all.
Elisabeth Elliot
-
Be not cheap or mediocre in desiring.
Ezra Pound
-
Still desiring, we live without hope.
Dante Alighieri
-
For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness. She wanted to stay like that. She wanted to shut out everything that would remind her of beautiful things, that might set her off again long, desiring . . .
Elizabeth von Arnim
