“It is not so much desire as will, resolve, determination.”
§ IV
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Context: Of all the Qualifications, Love is the most important, for if it is strong enough in a man, it forces him to acquire all the rest, and all the rest without it would never be sufficient. Often it is translated as an intense desire for liberation from the round of births and deaths, and for union with God. But to put it in that way sounds selfish, and gives only part of the meaning. It is not so much desire as will, resolve, determination. To produce its result, this resolve must fill your whole nature, so as to leave no room for any other feeling. It is indeed the will to be one with God, not in order that you may escape from weariness and suffering, but in order that because of your deep love for Him you may act with Him and as He does. Because He is Love, you, if you would become one with Him, must be filled with perfect unselfishness and love also.
In daily life this means two things; first, that you shall be careful to do no hurt to any living thing; second, that you shall always be watching for an opportunity to help.
First, to do no hurt. Three sins there are which work more harm than all else in the world — gossip, cruelty, and superstition — because they are sins against love. Against these three the man who would fill his heart with the love of God must watch ceaselessly.
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Jiddu Krishnamurti 233
Indian spiritual philosopher 1895–1986Related quotes
“I have so much of desire that desire itself is my fulfillment.”
The Secrets of Ishbar (1996)
“Desire, Dedication, Determination.”
describing his coaching philosophy
"Will," included in Maurine: And Other Poems, p. 145 (1888). Often quoted by Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji.
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)
Context: There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
All things give way before it soon or late.
What obstacle can stay the mighty force
Of the sea seeking river in its course,
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?
“Often again she is resolved to promise her skill to the unhappy man, then again refuses, and is determined rather to perish with him; and she cries that never will she yield to so base a passion…”
Saepe suas misero promittere destinat artes,
denegat atque una potius decernit in ira
ac neque tam turpi cessuram semet amori
proclamat.
Source: Argonautica, Book VII, Lines 317–320
“Nothing prevents us being natural so much as the desire to appear so.”
Rien n'empêche tant d'être naturel que l'envie de le paraître.
Maxim 431.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“A vague desire and determination grew upon me.”
Reflections on his earlier life, written when he was 27 (December 1862), published in Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886), edited by Harriet A. Jevons, his wife, p. 13.
Context: It was during the year 1851, while living almost unhappily among thoughtless, if not bad companions, in Gower Street a gloomy house on which I now look with dread it was then, and when I had got a quiet hour in my small bedroom at the top of the house, that I began to think that I could and ought to do more than others. A vague desire and determination grew upon me. I was then in the habit of saying my prayers like any good church person, and it was when so engaged that I thought most eagerly of the future, and hoped for the unknown. My reserve was so perfect that I suppose no one had the slightest comprehension of my motives or ends. My father probably knew me but little. I never had any confidential conversation with him. At school and college the success in the classes was the only indication of my powers. All else that I intended or did was within or carefully hidden. The reserved character, as I have often thought, is not pleasant nor lovely. But is it not necessary to one such as I? Would it have been sensible or even possible for a boy of fifteen or sixteen to say what he was going to do before he was fifty? For my own part I felt it to be almost presumptuous to pronounce to myself the hopes I held and the schemes I formed. Time alone could reveal whether they were empty or real; only when proved real could they be known to others.
“We desire nothing so much as what we ought not to have.”
Quod vult habet, qui cupere quod sat est potest.
Maxim 559 [Mimi et aliorum sententiae 677]
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave
Twitter https://twitter.com/marwilliamson (22 Oct 2019)
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Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 163.