Quotes About Desire

Directly after copulation, the devil's laughter is heard.

Truth is no prostitute, that throws herself away upon those who do not desire her; she is rather so coy a beauty that he who sacrifices everything to her cannot even then be sure of her favour.

But he will fear least to become nothing in death who has recognized that he is already nothing now, and who consequently no longer takes any share in his individual phenomenon, because in him knowledge has, as it were, burnt up and consumed the will, so that no will, thus no desire for individual existence, remains in him any more.

Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.)

Sometimes we credit ourselves with a longing to be in some distant spot, whereas, in truth, we are only longing to have the time back again which we spent there---days when we were younger and fresher than we are now.

The ultimate aim of all love affairs ... is more important than all other aims in man's life; and therefore it is quite worthy of the profound seriousness with which everyone pursues it.

happiness and satisfaction always imply some desire fulfilled, some state of pain brought to an end.

In the first place, no man is happy but strives his whole life long after a supposed happiness which he seldom attains, and even if he does it is only to be disappointed with it.

Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.

Every fulfilled wish we wrest from the world is really like alms that keep the beggar alive today so that he can starve again tomorrow.

Der Mensch kann wohl tun was er will, aber er kann nicht wollen was er will.

Think what you're doing! When you say I, I, I want to exist, it is not you alone that says this. Everything says it, absolutely everything that has the faintest trace of consciousness. It follows, then, that this desire of yours is just the part of you that is not individual - the part that is common to all things without distinction.

Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom.

We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack.

To measure a man's happiness only by what he gets, and not also by what he expects to get, is as futile as to try and express a fraction which shall have a numerator but no denominator.

No man becomes this or that by wishing to be it, however earnestly.

Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.

Caci avutia este ca apa sarata: cu cat bei cu atat ti-e mai este. La fel este si gloria.

Phil. Look what you are doing! When you say, I—I—I want to exist you alone do not say this, but everything, absolutely everything, that has only a vestige of consciousness. Consequently this desire of yours is just that which is not individual but which is common to all without distinction.

Si llamáramos a las tumbas y preguntáramos a los muertos si les gustaría levantarse otra vez, nos dirían que no.

We take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving after something.

Guardando tutto ciò che non abbiamo, siamo soliti pensare: E se fosse mio?, e cosí facendo avvertiamo la privazione. Viceversa, nel caso di ciò che possediamo dovremmo pensare spesso: E se lo perdessi?.

Riches, one may say, are like sea-water; the more you drink the thirstier you become; and the same is true of fame.

So treibt das Bedürfnis der Gesellschaft, aus der Leere und Monotonie des eigenen Innern entsprungen, die Menschen zueinander; aber ihre vielen widerwärtigen Eigenschaften und unerträglichen Fehler stoßen sie wieder voneinander ab.