“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 Evans 51
American writer 1962Related quotes
“Truly, we are dust and shadow; truly, desire is blind and greedy; truly, hope deceives.”
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
As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed
“The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.”
No. 33.
Aphorisms (1930)
“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
“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
“If only the desire to see could be as strong as the desire to unsee. ”
Desire, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“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
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