“Could it be that to truly love a thing is not to desire it, but to desire happiness for it?”
Source: The Letter
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Richard Paul Evans51
American writer 1962Related quotes
“Truly, we are dust and shadow; truly, desire is blind and greedy; truly, hope deceives.”
Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere
Veramente siam noi polvere et ombra,
veramente la voglia cieca e 'ngorda,
veramente fallace è la speranza.
Canzone 294, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed
“The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.”
F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) British philosopher
No. 33.
Aphorisms (1930)
“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil
Variant: One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.
Source: Beyond Good and Evil
“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
As quoted in a review of A Swinger of Birches (1957) by Sydney Cox in Vermont History, Vol. 25 (1957), p. 355
1950s
“If only the desire to see could be as strong as the desire to unsee. ”
Lars von Trier (1956) Danish film director and screenwriter
William Sharp (writer) (1855–1905) Scottish writer
Desire, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Love is a disease which fills you with a desire to be desired.”
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) French painter
Quoted in: Peter McWilliams (1997) Love 101: To Love Oneself Is the Beginning of a Lifelong Romance. p. 23
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