“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”
Variant: One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.
Source: Beyond Good and Evil
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Friedrich Nietzsche 655
German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and cl… 1844–1900Related quotes
“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
As quoted in a review of A Swinger of Birches (1957) by Sydney Cox in Vermont History, Vol. 25 (1957), p. 355
1950s
Quran: Chapter 28, verse 83, quoted in History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 24, p. 102
Last Sermon delivered to People, Last Words
Desire, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Could it be that to truly love a thing is not to desire it, but to desire happiness for it?”
Source: The Letter
“Love is a disease which fills you with a desire to be desired.”
Quoted in: Peter McWilliams (1997) Love 101: To Love Oneself Is the Beginning of a Lifelong Romance. p. 23
undated quotes
“I don't want to be loved. I want to be desired. Love is safety, but desire is foul.”
Source: Something to Tell You
“Love is desire for knowledge.”
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
“To lose the thing we love is greater pain
Than to desire and never to obtain.”
Che lasciar quel che s'ama, e peggio assai
Che disiarlo, e non averlo mai.
XVII, 6
Rifacimento of Orlando Innamorato