Quotes About Desire

No fear could match the hunger, no patience can exhaust it, repulsion just doesn't exist where there is hunger.

A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse.

Mankind, asserted the Professor with a self-confident glitter of his iron-rimmed spectacles, does not know what it wants.

en dehors de l'optique d'espérance éternelle, en dehors de la tromperie des habitudes prises et de l'attente du bonheur toujours rêvé

Man, we know, cannot live by bread alone but hang me if I don't believe that some women could live by love alone.

There are no words for the sort of things I wanted to say. If I had opened my lips just then I would have simply howled like an animal. I was asking myself when I would wake up.

There is something in a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget it till he is dead—and even then Doctor, did you ever hear of the miserable gringos on Azuera, that cannot die?

Envy and Arrogance and Avarice Are the three sparks that have all hearts enkindled.

O Crassus, tell us, For thou dost know, what is the taste of gold?

And ye have seen desiring without fruit, Those whose desire would have been quieted, Which evermore is given them for a grief. I speak of Aristotle and of Plato

For a bag of pepper, they could cut each other's throats without hesitation, and would forswear their souls... The bizarre obstinacy of that desire made them defy death in a thousand shapes; the unknown seas, the loathsome diseases; wounds, captivity, hunger, pestilence and despair. It made them great! By heavens! It made them heroic; and it made them pathetic, too, in their craving for trade with the inflexible death levying its toll on young and old

La strada sarebbe stata lunga. Tutte le strade che portano dove il cuore desidera sono lunghe. Ma questa strada l'occhio della mia mente poteva vederla su una carta, professionalmente, con tutte le difficoltà e complicazioni tecniche. In fondo tutto si riduceva a questo. O si é marinai o non lo si é. Ed io dubitavo di non esserlo.

A estrada seria longa. Todas as estradas que levam ao que o nosso coração almeja são longas

To think that I have wasted years of my life, that I have longed for death, that the greatest love that I have ever known has been for a woman who did not please me, who was not in my style! Part 4

And they all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an instant

Money is the most universal incitement of human misery.—Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.

Covetousness keeps the mind agitated and unhappy, far from the peace of contentment.

In our own culture, we might call it "catalogue consciousness," obsessively rifling through the pages to see what else we might want. It's "wanting to want," and it's a disease our culture keeps nourishing.

When we see something pleasant, we want to hold on, not understanding the impermanence of it all. As soon as we become mindful, paying attention to what's happening, seeing how everything is arising and passing away, the grasping and greed decreases. There's nothing to hold onto. It's all bubbles. And the experience of impermanence, the dissolving of the solidity of everything, brings about the letting go, the state of non-attachment.

You don't have to fulfil desires for them to go away.

When we're not mindful, pleasant feelings habitually condition desire and clinging, unpleasant feelings condition dislike and aversion, and neutral feelings condition delusion — that is, not really knowing what is going on. Yet when we are mindful, these very same feelings become the vehicle of our freedom.

He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret

Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?