“Wishes which cannot be fulfilled are said to be “pious.” It is assumed, apparently, that only profane wishes are fulfilled.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Unerreichbare Wünsche werden als »fromm« bezeichnet. Man scheint anzunehmen, dass nur die profanen in Erfüllung gehen.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 27.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 3, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Wishes which cannot be fulfilled are said to be “pious.” It is assumed, apparently, that only profane wishes are fulfil…" by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach?

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach81

Austrian writer 1830–1916

Related quotes

“Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled and observe the route that your attention follows.”

Neville Goddard (1905–1972) American author and lecturer

Source: The Power of Awareness

“Young people have many pleasures and many sorrows, because they only have themselves to think of, so every wish and every notion assume importance; every pleasure is tasted to the full, but also every sorrow, and many who find that their wishes cannot be fulfilled, immediately put an end to their lives.”

Hermann Hesse book Gertrud

Source: Gertrude (1910), p. 32

“The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact. Wish is a force as applied to thinking beings, to realize something. A fulfilled wish is a union of wish and fact. The meaning of the whole world is the separation and the union of fact and wish.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics

As quoted in The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us (MIT Press) 2013 by Yanofsky, Noson S

“If we wish to have blessings, we must fulfil our filial duties. Those who fulfil their filial duties will surely have blessings in the living world.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

Melbourne, (07 December 2014)[citation needed].

“Work democracy does not wish to prevent or prohibit anything. Its only intention is the fulfilment of the biological life functions, of love, work and knowledge.”

Wilhelm Reich book The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Section 3 : Work Democracy versus Politics. The Natural Social Forces for the Mastery of the Emotional Plague.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

“Love is a false synonym for propagation, as the soul is a wish fulfillment creation growing out of self-preservation.”

Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) American author

The Devil You Know (originally published in Unknown Fantasy Fiction, August 1941), p. 67
Short fiction, No Boundaries (1955)

“Man has many wishes that he does not really wish to fulfil, and it would be a misunderstanding to suppose the contrary. He wants them to remain wishes, they have value only in his imagination; their fulfilment would be a bitter disappointment to him. Such a desire is the desire for eternal life. If it were fulfilled, man would become thoroughly sick of living eternally, and yearn for death. In reality man wishes merely to avoid a premature, violent or gruesome death. Everything has its measure, says a pagan philosopher; in the end we weary of everything, even of life; a time comes when man desires death. Consequently there is nothing frightening about a normal, natural death, the death of a man who has fulfilled himself and lived out his life.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Lecture XXX, Atheism alone a Positive View <br class="br"> Lectures on the Essence of Religion http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/lectures/index.htm (1851)