“We all want things we can't have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.”
Source: The Collector
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John Fowles 120
British writer 1926–2005Related quotes

The Successful Woman : How You Can Have a Career, a Husband, and a Family — and Not Feel Guilty About It (1988), p. 18

“Being a decent human being will require effort and energy…”
Source: One Day

This is attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Joy of Kindness (1993), by Robert J. Furey, p. 138; but it is attributed to G. I. Gurdjieff in Beyond Prophecies and Predictions: Everyone's Guide To The Coming Changes (1993) by Moira Timms, p. 62; neither cite a source. It was widely popularized by Wayne Dyer, who often quotes it in his presentations, crediting it to Chardin, as does Stephen Covey in Living the 7 Habits : Stories of Courage and Inspiration (2000), p. 47. Such statements could be considered paraphrases of Hegel's dictum that matter is spirit fallen into a state of self-otherness. Or any number of thousands of similarly vague quotes by hundreds of predecessors.
Disputed
Variant: We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.
Variant: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Closing lines of his address to the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, in July 2000.
Source: Nkosi's speech at Nkosi's Haven http://www.nkosi.iafrica.com/index.html
“We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things.”
Source: Memoirs of a Geisha