Quotes About Longing

I'm convinced that human beings instinctively seek two things. We long for meaning, a sense that our life somehow matters to the world around us. And we long for community, a sense of being loved.

Dependence, sorrow, repentance, a longing to change—these are the gates to God's kingdom.

The temptation that Jesus resisted in the wildreness [a crown without a cross; worldly glory], many of us, His followers, still long for.

Los israelitas dieron amplias pruebas de que podemos llegar a desear las señales sin desear en realidad a Dios.

The deepest longings we feel on earth, as parents, as lovers, are mere flickers of the hungering desire God feels for us. It is a desire that cost him the Incarnation and the Crucifixion.

Augustine's Confessions...What it is, therefore, he begins, that goes on within the soul, since it takes greater delight if things that it loves are found or restored to it than if it had always possessed them?

Although we all have the capacity, our spiritual longing will remain unfulfilled until we make contact, and then develop the skills of spiritual "correspondence.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem [...] how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." The disciples had proposed that Jesus call down fire on unrepentant cities; in contrast, Jesus uttered a cry of helplessness, an astonishing "if only" from the lips of the Son of God. He would not force himself on those who were not willing.

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a drive toward [loving the One] who rings our heart like a bell. —ABRAHAM HESCHEL

Believing there is no God does not make the thirst go away.

I need God more than anything I might get from God.

La pregunta final estuvo preocupando a los judíos por siglos después que Malaquías y los otros profetas desaparecieron de la escena. No veían milagros, ni intervenciones espectaculares, y no habían escuchado nuevos mensajes del Señor. ¿Se había olvidado Dios de ser misericordioso? ¿Se había tapado los oídos a sus gemidos? El Antiguo Testamento termina con una nota de desilusión, anhelos no cumplidos, y remota esperanza.

The longing for Joy is in itself Joy. When he recalled when he had experienced Joy, he was, in that recollection, experiencing Joy anew, though he knew it not. Joy was not a state; it was an arrow pointing to something beyond all states, something objective yet unattainable – at least in our earthly existence.

But Anne, do you love him? I asked curiously. The curve of her hood hid all but the corner of her smile. I am a fool to own it, but I am in a fever for his touch.

In truth, I did not have to wonder. She would be feeling that disturbing mixture of emotions that she always summoned from me: admiration and envy, pride and a furious rivalry, a longing to see a beloved sister succeed, and a passionate desire to see a rival fall.

This is a woman whose belly is filled with pride. She has been eating nothing but her own ambition for nearly thirty years.

I won't forgive this wrong done to me and my house, whoever it was that killed my boys, I shall put a curse on their house that they will have no first born son to inherit. Whoever took my son will lose his son. He will spend his life longing for an heir. He will bury his first born and long for him, for I cannot even bury mine.

And what about Edward, is he still alive?' 'I don't know... I pray God he is.' 'But you don't expect him anymore?' 'No... If Edward is alive then I pray God he will find his way to me. And there will always be a candle in the window to light his way home, and my door will never be locked in case one day it is his hand on the latch.

You have to sit with your longing and know that you may not get what you want; you have to encounter the danger of longing for something without the expectation of getting your desire.

But I want to be loved. I have always been loved. I want my husband to love me with a passion, like in a troubadour tale, like a knight.

I had never seen a woman in such despair before. It was worse than death, it was a constant longing for death and a constant rejection of life. She lived like darkness in her own day.

A troubadour to a distant mistress.

Mas, entre nós, nunca houve tempo para as palavras de amor; a maior parte do nosso tempo foi gasta em despedidas.

I don't ask for more than a smile and to be in your prayers. I love from afar.