Quotes About Desire

If you haven't fought for your life for something you want, you don't know what's life all about.

He sat desiring the girl - a speed-hardened straw-colored junkie stewardess, a spoiled Augustana Lutheran, compounded of airport Muzak and beauty parlor school. Her eyes were fouled with smog and propane spray.

I would rather have eyes that cannot see; ears that cannot hear; lips that cannot speak, than a heart that cannot love.

romantic ambitions, there wasn't even such a place for her

The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts," said Mr. Wilde. "You are speaking of the King in Yellow," I groaned, with a shudder. "He

Wings," she murmured, "oh, yes—to fly away with when he's tired of his play. Of course it was a man who conceived the idea of wings, otherwise Cupid would have been insupportable.

Crimson nor yellow roses nor The savor of the mounting sea Are worth the perfume I adore That clings to thee. The languid-headed lilies tire, The changeless waters weary me; I ache with passionate desire Of thine and thee. There are but these things in the world— Thy mouth of fire, Thy breasts, thy hands, thy hair upcurled And my desire.

HUNGER AND THE MYTH OF FAMILY LOVE

I wanted to speak with someone, but found no time; sought some fixed point, but found none. In the midst of the unrelenting forward thrust I felt the wish to stand still. The muchness and the motion were too much and too fast. Everyone withdrew from everyone. There was a running, as of something liquefied, a constant going forth, as of evaporation. Everything was schematic, ghostlike, even myself.

I had forgotten. Disgust shadows desire. Another life is never safely envied.

There can be no [ego] desire if there is no object. The state of no-desire is enlightenment.

Freedom from desire is the essential pre-requisite; find out the root of desires, the source from whence they proceed

A person who desires [something "apart"], identifies with the body.

People may chuckle appreciatively at a male turkey that tries to mate with a poor rendition of a female's [suspended] head, but if you then point out that many a human male regularly gets aroused after looking at two-dimensional representations of a nude woman, they don't see the connection.

We are designed to feel that the next great goal will bring bliss, and the bliss is designed to evaporate shortly after we get there. Natural selection has a malicious sense of humor; it leads us along with a series of promises and then keeps saying "Just kidding.

Underlying it all is the happiness delusion. As the Buddha emphasized, our ongoing attempts to feel better tend to involve an overestimation of how long "better" is going to last. What's more, when "better" ends, it can be followed by "worse"—an unsettled feeling, a thirst for more. Long before psychologists were describing the hedonic treadmill, the Buddha saw it.

One of the Buddha's main messages was that the pleasures we seek evaporate quickly and leave us thirsting for more. We spend our time looking for the next gratifying thing—the next powdered-sugar doughnut, the next sexual encounter, the next status-enhancing promotion, the next online purchase. But the thrill always fades, and it always leaves us wanting more.

One of the Buddha's main messages was that the pleasures we seek evaporate quickly and leave us thirsting for more.

The old Rolling Stones lyric "I can't get no satisfaction" is, according to Buddhism, the human condition.

It is no coincidence that demons and drug dealers often use the same opening line ("Just try a little; it will feel good"), or that religious people often see demons in drugs. For habituation to any goal—sex or power, say—is literally an addictive process, a growing dependence on the biological chemicals that make these things gratifying.

According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of 'me' and 'mine,' selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities, and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.

According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of 'me' and 'mine,' selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities, and problems.

What's fundamental to the Buddha's teachings is the general dynamic of being powerfully drawn to sensory pleasure that winds up being fleeting at best.

For a species low in male parental investment, the basic dynamic of courtship, as we've seen, is pretty simple: the male really wants sex; the female isn't so sure.7