Quotes About Desire

There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.

Love is the pursuit of the whole.

And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.

Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.

Plato asked Socrates what is love... Socrates: Go into the field and get me the most special leaf... Plato returned with no leaf at hand said: I found the most beautiful leaf in the field but I didn't pick it up for I might find a better one, but when I returned to the place, it was gone... Socrates: We always look for the best in life. When we finally see it, we take it for granted and expecting a better one... NOT KNOWING IT WAS THE BEST AND LAST!!!

What a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain! A man cannot have both at the same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head.

Love is merely the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.

Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.

Pleasure is the bait of sin

Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world.

To the degree that I cease to persue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears.

Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.

I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best. (tr Jowett)

When I kiss Agathon my soul is on my lips, where it comes, poor thing, hoping to cross over.

Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned; Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes.

Eros guides us to Logos.

And such men, you know, before finding out in what way something they desire can exist, put that question aside so they won't grow weary deliberating about what's possible and not.

love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?

The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight.

Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State—first, temperance, and then justice which is the end of our search. Very true. Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance? I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first. Certainly

Virtue is the desire of things honorable and the power of attaining them.

The first of the two loves has a noble purpose, and delights only in the intelligent nature of man, and is faithful to the end, and has no shadow of wantonness or lust. The second is the coarser kind of love, which is a love of the body rather than of the soul, and is of women and boys as well as of men.