Quotes About Desire

Suddenly it was too hard to be in his presence, too painful to know that he would belong to someone else.

There is a German word, Sehnsucht , which has no English equivalent; it means 'the longing for something'. It has Romantic and mystical connotations; C.S. Lewis defined it as the 'inconsolable longing' in the human heart for 'we know not what'. It seems rather German to be able to specify the unspecifiable. The longing for something - or, in our case, for someone.

Love is just a system for getting someone to call you Darling after sex.

If a man cannot tell what he wants to do, then he must find out what he ought to do. If desire has become complicated, then hold fast to duty.

You lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.

What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favorite perversion.

Because at some point everyone wants to run away from their life. It's about the only thing human beings have in common

But cockteasing is also a metaphor: she is someone who will manipulate your inner self while holding hers back from you.

Books are not life, however much we may wish they were

Isn't the most reliable form of pleasure, Flaubert implies, the pleasure of anticipation? Who needs to burst into fulfilment's desolate attic?

It is important to understand that in the modern world we prefer the replica to the original because it gives us the greater frisson. I leave that word in French because I think you understand it well that way.

my desire to ascribe responsibility might be more a reflection of my own cast of mind than a fair analysis of what happened, like the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us

People prefer to get what they want rather than what they deserve.

We all pursue what we think is best for us, even if it means our extinction. Sometimes, especially if it means that.

It may be all right, you may have talked about it and agreed it was all right, but that's not how sex works, is it? It's where the unsayable is king; it's where madness and surprise rule; it's where the cheques you write for ecstasy are drawn on the bank of despair.

I don't ever want to get old. Spare me that. Have you the power? No, even you don't have the power, alas.

I want a more difficult life, that's all. What I really want is a first-rate life. I may not get it, but the only chance I have lies in getting out of a second-rate life. I may fail completely, but I do want to try. It's to do with me, not you; so don't worry.

What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favourite perversion?

Louise Colet was a proto-feminist who committed the sin of wanting to make someone else happy.

Nós sabíamos por nossas leituras dos grandes livros que Amor envolvia Sofrimento, e teríamos de bom grado praticado o Sofrimento se houvesse uma promessa implícita, talvez até lógica, de que o Amor poderia estar a caminho.

But then, no one told the whole truth about sex. And in that respect, nothing has changed.

Beware of dreams," Elizabeth Finch replied. "Also, as a general rule, beware of what most people aspire to.

Enforced monogamy is as much to say enforced happiness, which we know is not possible. Unenforced monogamy might seem possible. Romantic monogamy might seem to be desirable. But the first normally collapses back into a version of enforced monogamy, while the second is liable to become obsessive and hysterical. And thereby lies close to monomania. We should always distinguish between mutual passion and shared monomania.

Perhaps Goethe never found the right woman.