“What is at stake here is precisely the problem of the fulfillment of desire: when we encounter in reality an object which has all the properties of the fantasized object of desire, we are nevertheless necessarily somewhat disappointed; we experience a certain this is not it; it becomes evident that the finally found real object is not the reference of desire even though it possesses all the required properties.”

Source: Annihilation

20
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), p. 73

1920s, Sidelights on Relativity (1922)

Source: The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 17, The Brass Ring, IV

Adam Przeworski, Sustainable Democracy (1995), Conclusion

X. Concerning Virtue and Vice.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: The doctrine of virtue and vice depends on that of the soul. When the irrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces fight and desire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the soul tripartite, composed of reason, fight, and desire. Virtue in the region of reason is wisdom, in the region of fight is courage, in the region of desire is temperance; the virtue of the whole soul is righteousness. It is for reason to judge what is right, for fight in obedience to reason to despise things that appear terrible, for desire to pursue not the apparently desirable, but, that which is with reason desirable. When these things are so, we have a righteous life; for righteousness in matters of property is but a small part of virtue. And thus we shall find all four virtues in properly trained men, but among the untrained one may be brave and unjust, another temperate and stupid, another prudent and unprincipled. Indeed, these qualities should not be called virtues when they are devoid of reason and imperfect and found in irrational beings. Vice should be regarded as consisting of the opposite elements. In reason it is folly, in fight, cowardice, in desire, intemperance, in the whole soul, unrighteousness.
The virtues are produced by the right social organization and by good rearing and education, the vices by the opposite.

Ilz font semblant de n'aymer poinct les raisins quand ilz sont si haults, qu'ilz ne les peuvent cueillir.
Sixth Day, Novel LIII (trans. P. A. Chilton)
L'Heptaméron (1558)

Source: The Design of Everyday Things (1988, 2002), Ch. 7, p. 216.