Quotes about appetite

A collection of quotes on the topic of appetite, man, doing, other.

Quotes about appetite

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Aristotle photo

“Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.”

Book I, 1369a.5
Rhetoric
Variant: All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire
Source: Selected Works

Anna Kingsford photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover…Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.”

I-II, q. 28, art. 5
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Context: it is to be observed that four proximate effects may be ascribed to love: viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover... Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.

William Shakespeare photo
William Shakespeare photo
Christopher Isherwood photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Joke during his 1965 campaign for Governor of California, as quoted by Leo E. Litwak in The New York Times Magazine (14 November 1965), p. 174 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50F13FC3B591B7A93C6A8178AD95F418685F9.
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
As quoted in The Reagan Wit (1981) by Bill Adler, p. 30
1960s

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Melancholy: an appetite no misery satisfies.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: All Gall Is Divided: Aphorisms

Aurelius Augustinus photo
George Horne photo

“Riches, honors and pleasure are the sweets which destroy the mind’s appetite for heavenly food; poverty, disgrace and pain are the bitters which restore it.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

Source: The Works of the Right Reverend George Horne, 1809, p. 310

Jonathan Franzen photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo
Saul Bellow photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Alledgedly from a speech to the Illinois House of Representatives (18 December 1840) its called "a remarkable piece of spurious Lincolniana" by Merrill D. Peterson: Lincoln in American Memory. Oxford UP 1995, books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=EADk9ZIMJXEC&q=prohibitory#v=page. Cf.Spurious archive.org https://archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnqulinc_41 and Harry Miller Lydenberg: Lincoln and Prohibition, Blazes on a Zigzag Trail. Proceedings Of The American Antiquarian Society, No. 1/1952 pdf http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807229.pdf.
Misattributed

Emil M. Cioran photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Françoise Sagan photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
John Locke photo

“Curiosity should be as carefully cherish'd in children, as other appetites suppress'd.”

Sec. 108
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: They should always be heard, and fairly and kindly answer'd, when they ask after any thing they would know, and desire to be informed about. Curiosity should be as carefully cherish'd in children, as other appetites suppress'd.

Chris Hedges photo
Mark Twain photo
Socrates photo

“He who drinks with the greatest appetite is the least inclined to look for a draught which is not at hand.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Diogenes Laertius

Socrates photo

“The man who eats with the greatest appetite has the least need of delicacies.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Diogenes Laertius

Rachel Caine photo
Madonna photo

“Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Variant: Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book.

Anthony Trollope photo

“Don't let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.”

Source: Barchester Towers (1857), Ch. 38

Jerry Spinelli photo
Bruno Schulz photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
William Shakespeare photo
David Hume photo
George Eliot photo
Don DeLillo photo
Thomas Aquinas photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Aldous Huxley photo
George Gordon Byron photo

“I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Robert F. Kennedy photo
Eric Hoffer photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Haruki Murakami photo

“I never trust people with no appetite. It's like they're always holding something back on you.”

Source: Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 35, Nail Clippers, Butter Sauce, Iron Vase
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Clive Barker photo
Ian McEwan photo
Federico García Lorca photo

“The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died forever.

The shoulder of the stone does not know you
nor the black silk on which you are crumbling.
Your silent memory does not know you
because you have died forever.

The autumn will come with conches,
misty grapes and clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
because you have died forever.

Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.

Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
Of the signal maturity of your understanding.
Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.
Of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.”

<p>No te conoce el toro ni la higuera,
ni caballos ni hormigas de tu casa.
No te conoce el niño ni la tarde
porque te has muerto para siempre.</p><p>No te conoce el lomo de la piedra,
ni el raso negro donde te destrozas.
No te conoce tu recuerdo mudo
porque te has muerto para siempre.</p><p>El otoño vendrá con caracolas,
uva de niebla y montes agrupados,
pero nadie querrá mirar tus ojos
porque te has muerto para siempre.</p><p>Porque te has muerto para siempre,
como todos los muertos de la Tierra,
como todos los muertos que se olvidan
en un montón de perros apagados.</p><p>No te conoce nadie. No. Pero yo te canto.
Yo canto para luego tu perfil y tu gracia.
La madurez insigne de tu conocimiento.
Tu apetencia de muerte y el gusto de su boca.
La tristeza que tuvo tu valiente alegría.</p>
Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (1935)

“In the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon: "In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the Gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place which 't is not good manners to mention here."”

Thomas Brown (1662–1704) English translator and writer of satire

Laconics, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Who never mentions hell to ears polite", Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, epistle iv, line 149.
Source: Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704. Laconics, Or, New Maxims of State And Conversation: Relating to the Affairs And Manners of the Present Times : In Three Parts. London: Printed for Thomas Hodgson ..., 1701. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015013771368?urlappend=%3Bseq=114

Aldous Huxley photo
Jusuf Kalla photo
Gideon Mantell photo
Aldo Leopold photo
William Ellery Channing photo

“Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness' sake?”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 536

Paul Mason (journalist) photo
Jean-Baptiste Say photo

“What is the motive which operates in every man's breast to counteract the impulse towards the gratification of his wants and appetites?”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XIX, p. 207

John Steinbeck photo
Michael Shea photo
John Dear photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo
Robert Williams Buchanan photo

“Their hearts and sentiments were free, their appetites were hearty.”

Robert Williams Buchanan (1841–1901) Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist

City of the Saints.

“One definition of success might be refining our appetites, while deepening our hunger.”

"Where Epics Fail: Aphorisms on Art, Morality & Spirit" (2018)

Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Henry Adams photo
Amir Taheri photo

“The Shah's vision of the ideal form of government was not so far removed from that of Mossadeq. In that ideal model one man, the king, prime minister or Pishva [Führer] would act as the guardian of the nation's highest interests. The Pishva, because he loves his people, could never do anything that might not be good for the people and the country. He might sacrifice the interests of the few for the benefit of the many. But he would never harm 'the people' or 'the nation' as a whole. Mossadeq's version of the same model envisaged a role for crowds, political groups - though not for political parties - and religious associations whose task was to support the Pishva by fighting his opponents and making him feel loved and cherished. In the Shah's model, the Pishva's decisions were to be carried out exclusively through the bureaucracy with the armed forces always ready to crush any opposition. All that was left for 'the nation' to do was applaud the Pishva and make him feel good. Mossadeq and the Shah advanced exactly the same argument in defence of their respective models: Iran, being constantly prey to the devilish appetite of the rapacious foreign powers, the influence of the ajnabi (foreigners), multiplying the centres of political power would allow the ajnabi to infiltrate the nation's structures. Neither man could invisage a situation in which different sections of the Iranian society might, for reasons of their own, oppose the Leader. They could conceive of no circumstances in which an opposition movement could emerge without foreign backing and intrigue.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

The Unknown Life of the Shah (1991)

Bernard Berenson photo

“Taste begins when appetite is satisfied.”

Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) American art critic

Quoted by Stephen Bayley in The Observer http://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jul/29/communities.architecture (28 July 2007)

Francis Bacon photo
George Eliot photo
Courtney Stodden photo
Democritus photo

“If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Freeman (1948), p. 170
Variant: By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.

Sidney Lee photo

“He had a splendid appetite at all times, and never toyed with his food”

Sidney Lee (1859–1926) English biographer and critic

Of King Edward VII; "King Edward VII: a Biography", vol.2 (1927) p. 408

Amit Chaudhuri photo
Camille Paglia photo
Damian Pettigrew photo

“We lunched in Fregene: grilled sardines sprinkled with parsley and lemon. Federico ate daintily, like someone with no appetite. The beach was deserted, the wind brisk. In the distance stood the abandoned lighthouse he filmed for 8 1/2. Like someone about to propose a toast, he stood up and "recited" from King Lear :
Hark! Have you heard the news? The king fell off a cliff.
O horrible! Were you very close to him?
Indeed, sir. Close enough to push.
We laughed until he brusquely sat down again, scraping the fish scales off his fingers, staring at the age spots that covered his hands. The beautiful adolescent waitress asked for his autograph. He drew himself as a man-lion in a hat and scarf with huge paws chasing her, and signed it "Féfé." We spent the afternoon visiting Ostia and returned to Rome in a sweltering twilight. He asked to be driven home for a change of clothes. We invited Giulietta, who wore a green velvet turban, to join us for dinner. (Had she already lost her hair from chemotherapy?) Graciously, she declined while smoking cigarette after cigarette. At Cesarina's, Federico drew hilarious, pornographic sketches on the table napkin saying, "If you have not made love today then you have lost a day!"”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

The entire restaurant was at his feet. He was twenty years old now and as thin as Kafka. He was Rome. He had adopted us the way Rome adopts everyone, and we loved him.
On Fellini's final years
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)

Alan Hirsch photo
William Moulton Marston photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Jeane Kirkpatrick photo

“Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of 'entitlements', which are subject to no constraints except those of the mind and appetite of their authors.”

Jeane Kirkpatrick (1926–2006) American diplomat and Presidential advisor

Legitimacy and Force (1988), 130.
Jeane Kirkpatrick talking about a report of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, which she termed "a letter to Santa Claus." as in A Human Rights Approach to Food and Nutrition Policies and Programmes by Peter L. Pellett http://www.unsystem.org/SCN/archives/scnnews18/ch06.htm, who quotes The Hypocrisy Of It All by Noam Chomsky (1999) http://www.middleeast.org/archives/1999_01_25.htm

Will Self photo

“I have a healthy appetite for solitude. If you don't, you have no business being a writer.”

Will Self (1961) English writer and journalist

The Guardian, May 9, 2007. http://books.guardian.co.uk/whyiwrite/story/0,,2075745,00.html#article_continue

Greg Egan photo
Tryon Edwards photo
Kunti photo

“Desire is in men a hunger, in women only an appetite.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Alphonse de Lamartine photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“I hope I have just had simply an artist's freak, and then a lot of fever after very considerable loss of blood, as an artery was severed, but my appetite came back at once. My digestion is all right, and so from day to day serenity returns to my brain.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, Jan. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 569), p 24
Vincent wrote this letter about two weeks after his first attack, during which he had cut off his ear
1880s, 1889

Bill Moyers photo
Robert Grosseteste photo
Homér photo