“Then he added, as men will who are of infinite imagination and crammed with desires, 'My wants are few.”
Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), p. 78
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Hilaire Belloc 91
writer 1870–1953Related quotes

“Few men desire freedom, the greater part desire just masters.”
Namque pauci libertatem, pars magna iustos dominos volunt.
IV.69.18
Variant translation: Only a few prefer liberty, the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.
Histories

Source: Social Problems (1883), Ch. 21 : Conclusion
Context: Many there are, too depressed, too embruted with hard toil and the struggle for animal existence, to think for themselves. Therefore the obligation devolves with all the more force on those who can. If thinking men are few, they are for that reason all the more powerful. Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power. That for every idle word men may speak they shall give an account at the day of judgment, seems a hard saying. But what more clear than that the theory of the persistence of force, which teaches us that every movement continues to act and react, must apply as well to the universe of mind as to that of matter? Whoever becomes imbued with a noble idea kindles a flame from which other torches are lit, and influences those with whom he comes in contact, be they few or many. How far that influence, thus perpetuated, may extend, it is not given to him here to see. But it may be that the Lord of the Vineyard will know.

“It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones.”
Letter to James McHenry (10 August 1798)
1790s

“All men desire peace, but very few desire those things that make for peace.”
Source: The Imitation of Christ

“Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.”
Méditations Poétiques (1820), Sermon 2