Quotes About Desire

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

Die Sinnlichkeit übereilt oft das Wachsthum der Liebe, so dass die Wurzel schwach bleibt und leicht auszureissen ist.

Man liebt zuletzt seine Begierde, und nicht das Begehrte.

Ich liebe die großen Verachtenden, weil sie die großen Verehrenden sind und Pfeile der Sehnsucht nach dem andern Ufer.

Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession.

We laugh at a man who, stepping out of his room at the very minute when the sun is rising, says, "It is my will that the sun shall rise"; or at him who, unable to stop a wheel, says, "I wish it to roll"; or, again, at him who, thrown in a wrestling match, says, "Here I lie, but here I wish to lie." But, joking apart, do we not act like one of these three persons whenever we use the expression "I wish"?

He'd said that same day to Fani that a practical man can always make what he wants to do look like a sacrifice for others' welfare.

Oh the human infatuation with guilt and retribution! The dread of and perhaps desire for punishment! How ready we are for others to hate us! Midnight in the Mirror World

That was another trouble with women, they were never there when you wanted or really needed them. They helped each other, all right, but they expected men to do all sorts of impossible feats of derring-do to prove themselves worthy of the great gift of their love (and what was that when you got down to it?—a fleeting clench-and-wriggle in the dark, illuminated only by the mute, incomprehensible perfection of a dainty breast, that left you bewildered and sad).

Der verschlingener des Lebens'—'The Devourer

Man wants three things; life, knowledge, and love.

When the will loves anything that is below it in dignity, it degrades itself.

She satisfies my ideal." Every person carries within his heart a blueprint of the one he loves; what appears to be "love at first sight" is often the fulfillment of a desire and the realization of a dream.

the sadness it feels in attaining any happiness less than the infinite—all these constitute the mating call of God to the soul.

One can yearn for another after knowing flesh unity, but it is impossible to yearn for another after soul unity.

Love itself starts with the desire for something good.

What some people love is not a person but the experience of being in love. The first is irreplaceable; the second is not.

Carnal love, despite its seeming intimacy, often can become an exchange of egotisms. The ego is projected onto the other person and what is loved is not the other person, but the pleasure the other person gives.

The very fact that a man or woman seeks a new partner is a proof that there never was any love at all. For though sex is replaceable, love is not. Sex is for pleasure; love is for a person. Cows can graze on other pastures, but a person admits of no substitution.

libido, or concupiscence, a tending toward certain things in defiance of rational restraint.

The celibate is bound to feel lonely in that atmosphere, but it is a different kind of loneliness that plagues the erotic. The former is tempted because, in the natural order, he is without a partner; the other is lonely even when he has his partner, for as St. Augustine reflected: "Our hearts were made for Thee, O Lord, and they cannot rest until they rest in Thee.

The basis of all disappointment is the disproportion between what we imagine or wish for to make us happy and what we actually possess.

Celibacy is not the absence of a passion; it is rather the intensity of a passion.

Sex understood in the modern way is Eros-love severed from responsibility; it is desire without obligation. Because it is lawless desire, it is therefore Godless desire. That is why eroticism and atheism always go together.