Quotes about desire (3938 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“They never noticed the one who, silently, sustained this story, chose the future, set the guidelines for their memories and desires.”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Future , Memory

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

People , Democracy , Soul , Heart

“You cannot regulate desire.”

Tom Holland

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

“Satanism condones any type of sexual activity which properly satisfies your individual desires – be it heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or even asexual, if you choose. Satanism also sanctions any fetish or deviation which will enhance your sex-life, so long as it involves no one who does not wish to be involved.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Life , Sex

“Knowledge is a desire that comes after acquiring power. The first type of desire is love, then wealth, health, power and knowledge.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Wealth , Health , Knowledge , Love

“If we had remained in Pakistan, it would be a strong country. Again, if India had not been divided in 1947, it would be an even stronger country. But, then, Mr. President, in life do we always get what we desire?”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

Speaking about the break up of Pakistan with Nigerian leader Yakubu Gowon. http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2009/08/02/tribute.htm
Quote, Other

Life , Strong , Country

“The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.”

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

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

Death

“Love is a feeling,
Give it when I want it,
'Cause I'm on fire,
Quench my desire,
Love is a woman,
I don't want to give in,
Give in to me, give in to me.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Give In To Me
Dangerous (1991)

Love , Feeling

“My spirit is warmed up with the visions of my destiny; while my heart is burning with the desires to achieve them all. Those thoughts have produced a thick smoke that's clouding my mind from focusing in the present moment.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Heart

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd: the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create a raw landscape within us, a sun eternally setting on what we are.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Os sentimentos que mais doem, as emoções que mais pungem, são os que são absurdos – a ânsia de coisas impossíveis, precisamente porque são impossíveis, a saudade do que nunca houve, o desejo do que poderia ter sido, a mágoa de não ser outro, a insatisfação da existência do mundo. Todos estes meios tons da consciencia da alma criam em nós uma paisagem dolorida, um eterno sol-pôr do que somos.
The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 196

World , Feeling , Soul , Nostalgia

“I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

Life

“Never let your personal desires and emotions outcompete your reasoning capacity.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, P.51 (July 2018)

Personality

“To be conscious of being poor while praying for riches is to be rewarded with that which you are conscious of being, namely, poverty. Prayers to be successful must be claimed and appropriated. Assume the positive consciousness of the thing desired.”

Neville Goddard (1905–1972) American author and lecturer

Source: Your Faith is Your Fortune

Success

“I salute my desires with a bow.,
were it not for them to come and play
mind would be empty just like me.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

Desire http://lifeandlegends.com/suman-pokhrel-translated-dr-abhi-subedi/
From Poetry

“Like the old Indian proverb says, do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his moccasins.
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in which most is not true. I cry very very often because it hurts and I worry about the children, all my children all over the world, I live for them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he could prove, history could not be written.
Animals strike not from malice but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children.
But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now. MJ.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Handwritten note published in People (12 October 1987)

Pain , Children , People , Truth

“Pick up a book on any subject of your desire, sit down in full discipline, then read quietly. Remember, you are never alone. God is within and is always watching.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God , Reading , Books

“Self-realization is realizing the truth that was already there when you were still unaware of it. Self-help means regaining your full freedom and living according to your desires.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Freedom , Help , Truth

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Context: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

People , Star , Time , Madness

“So what is wild? What is wilderness? What are dreams but an internal wilderness and what is desire but a wildness of the soul?”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year

Dreams , Soul

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Star , Heart

“Every day I discover
more and more
beautiful things.
It’s enough to drive one mad.
I have such a desire
to do everything,
my head is bursting with it.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Variant: Everyday I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.

Beauty , Madness

“The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man's slavery”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi

“If God were our one and only desire we would not be so easily upset when our opinions do not find outside acceptance.”

Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ

Source: The Imitation of Christ

God

“What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Heart , Motivational

“Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

God , Fear , Hell

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Inspirational , Success , Deep , Life

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Nature , Happiness

“The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Nature

“Angels, living light most glorious!
Beneath the Godhead in burning desire
in the darkness and mystery of creation
you look on the eye of your God
never taking your fill:
What glorious pleasures take shape within you!”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

"O gloriosissimi"

God , Pleasure , Angels , Light

“The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person's,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said, “Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in.” With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry. But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men's hall where the banquet was served, announced: “You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation.””

Xenophon Symposium

“Well, then,” said Callias, “take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.”
Symposium, 1.11-13

Men , Food , Thinking , Laughter

“If you desire to rule and conquer, you don't just fold your hands when things go wrong, you act.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

"History of India" at Amazing World http://www.amworld.info/india-travel/history-of-india; it is not clear in the source cited that this is a quote of Babur — it might be a comment made about him.
Disputed

“The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse — it will not submit to the mold of flattery.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Conversations (March 1820)

World , Art , Selfishness

“My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach. Before my Soul taught me, I doubted the value of my accomplishments until the passing days sent someone who would extol or disparage them. But now I know that trees blossom in the spring and give their fruits in the summer without any desire for accolades. And they scatter their leaves abroad in the fall and denude themselves in the winter without fear of reproof.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (1994)

Fear , Soul , Spring , Tree

“Pleasure limits the scope of human possiblity-the pleasure principle is a principle of homeostasis. Desire, on the other hand, finds its boundary, its strict relation, its limit, and it is in the relation to this limit that it is sustained as such, crossing the threshold imposed by the pleasure principle.”

Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist

Of The Subject of Certainty p. 31
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho Analysis (1978)

Pleasure

“One who rushes madly after inordinate desire, runs the risk of encountering destruction and death.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Death

“Time changes, and our desires change. What we
believe—even what we are—is ever-
changing. The world is change, which forever
takes on new qualities.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 70
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades

Change , Time

“The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.”

Mikhail Lermontov book A Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

People , Soul , History , Reading

“A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.”

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) Japanese writer

Yam Gruel (1916), in Rashomon and Other Stories https://books.google.it/books?id=DYHQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT29 (Tuttle, 2011).

Life

“When travel outside the city is desired, computer-guided vehicles for land, sea, air, space and beyond can transport passengers and freight. For rapid movement of passengers on land across via ducts, bridges, and tunnels, high-speed mag-lev trains span great distances and will efficiently replace most aircraft transportation.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Designing the Future (2007)

Training , Travel , Sea , Speed

“We must consider that wisdom is embedded in knowledge. Here is the list of the desires in order: Love, wealth, health, power and knowledge.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Wealth , Health , Knowledge , Love

“What Jesus invites us to imitate is his own desire, the spirit that directs him toward the goal on which his intention is fixed: to resemble God the Father as much as possible.”

René Girard (1923–2015) French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science

Source: I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

God

“Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Source: In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer

Love , God , Hate , World

“Fantasy mirrors desire. Imagination reshapes it.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

Imagination

“My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 156

For Men , Pain , Fear , Idea

“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Variant: One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.
Source: Beyond Good and Evil

Love

“I desire the things which will destroy me in the end.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Journal entry from July 1950 – 1953, page 63 of the original, page 55 of the collection
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000)
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“In this world, whenever there is light, there are also shadows. As long as the concept of winners exist, there must also be losers. The selfish desire of wanting to maintain peace causes wars and hatred is born to protect love.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Love , War , World , Peace

“Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own”

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) Swedish 18th century scientist and theologian

Love , Feeling

“I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.”

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) English children's writer and illustrator

Time , Drawing

“Your treasure - your perfection - is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Business , Silence , Heart , Perfection

“I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.”

Elisabeth Elliot book Through Gates of Splendor

Source: Through Gates of Splendor

Life

“LIFE + DESIRE = MAN; LIFE – DESIRE = GOD.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Interview with R.K. Karanjia for Blitz magazine (1976)

Life , God

“There is an influence which is getting strong and stronger day by day, which shows itself more and more in all departments of human activity, and influence most fruitful and beneficial—the influence of the artist. It was a happy day for the mass of humanity when the artist felt the desire of becoming a physician, an electrician, an engineer or mechanician or—whatnot—a mathematician or a financier; for it was he who wrought all these wonders and grandeur we are witnessing. It was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one's pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"Roentgen Rays or Streams", Electrical Review (12 Aug 1896). Reprinted in The Nikola Tesla Treasury (2007), 307. By Nikola Tesla

Pleasure , School , Study , Freedom

“One day, to pass the time away, we read
of Lancelot—how love had overcome him.
We were alone, and we suspected nothing.
And time and time again that reading led
our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
and yet one point alone defeated us.
When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by one who was so true a lover,
this one, who never shall be parted from me,
while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.
A Gallehault indeed, that book and he
who wrote it, too; that day we read no more.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 127–138 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Love , Books , Smile , Lovers

“I don't have the desire to hurt anyone anymore. I see a fly, but I don't have the nerve to get up and kill it.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/saraceno/2005-06-12-saraceno-tyson_x.htm
On boxing

Hurt , Flying

“The soul that desires God to surrender himself to it entirely must surrender itself entirely to him without keeping anything for itself.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

The Sayings of Light and Love

God , Soul

“One ought to fast, watch, and labor to the extent that such activities are needed to harness the body’s desires and longings; however, those who presume that they are justified by works pay no attention to the need for self-discipline but see the works themselves as the way to righteousness. They believe that if they do a great number of impressive works all will be well and righteousness will be the result. Sometimes this is pursued with such zeal that they become mentally unstable and their bodies are sapped of all strength. Such disastrous consequences demonstrate that the belief that we are justified and saved by works without faith is extremely foolish.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 73

Faith , Way

“I had these obsessive desires and thoughts wanting to control them [victims], to–I don't know how to put it–possess them permanently.”

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile

Inside Edition Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtvmGdzgdLM

“Because I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary, that eagles should be crows.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Quoted in Vine Deloria, God Is Red: A Native View of Religion. Golden, Colo: Fulcrum Pub, 2003, cited to Virginia Armstrong, I have spoken; American history through the voices of the Indians. Chicago, Sage Books, 1971.

Heart

“Somewhere, the deepest desire for us all is to be appreciated, to be loved, to be seen as somebody of value. But not just seen — and Aristotle makes a difference between being admired and being loved. When you admire people, you put them on pedestals. When you love people, you want to be together. So really, the first meeting I had with people with disabilities, what touched me was their cry for relationship.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009
From interviews and talks

Love , People , Cry

“Satanism encourages its followers to indulge in their natural desires. Only by doing so can you be a completely satisfied person with no frustrations which can be harmful to yourself and others around you. Therefore, the most simplified description of the Satanic belief is: indulgence instead of abstinence.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Nature , Personality

“It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.”

Woody Allen book Side Effects

"The UFO Menace".
Side Effects (1980)

Travel , Light

“Moses … takes one form of desire, that one whose field of activity is the belly, and admonishes and disciplines it as the first step, holding that the other forms will cease to run riot as before and will be restrained by having learnt that their senior and as it were the leader of their company is obedient to the laws of temperance.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

77.
On the Special Laws

Law

“We grow older more quickly by not chasing our passionate desires; passion helps one to feel alive.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2019

Passion , Help , Feeling

“Never permit the flames of love and desire char you beyond recognition.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1981

Love , Making love

“You burn with the flames of desire for someone that doesn’t notice or pay attention. Your love affair has not even begun and the flames are now burning into your soul. You can douse the flames; you must first walk away. Only then can you be transformed.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1977 (from the poem, Douse the Flames)

Soul , Love , Making love

“For in every action what is primarily intended by the doer, whether he acts from natural necessity or out of free will, it is the disclosure of his own image. Hence it comes about that every doer, in so far as he does, takes delight in doing; since everything that is desires its own being, and since in action the being of the doer is somehow intensified, delight necessarily follows... Thus, nothing acts unless [by acting] it makes patent its latent self.”

Dante Alighieri book De Monarchia

Libri iii, Caput XIII, (XV.) emendati Johann Heinrich F. Karl Witte (1874) p. 25. https://www.google.com/books/edition/De_monarchia_libri_iii_emendati_per_C_Wi/_RhcAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA25&printsec=frontcover Translation as quoted by Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958) p. 175. https://archive.org/details/humancondition0000aren/page/175/mode/1up
De Monarchia (1312-1313)
Original: (la) Nam in omni actione principaliter intenditur ab agente, sive necessitate naturae, sive voluntarie agat, propriam similitudinem explicare, unde fit, quod omne agens, in quantum huiusmodi, delectatur; quia, quum omne quod est appetat suum esse, ac in agendo agentis esse quodammodo amplietur, sequiturde necessitate delectatio... Nihil igitur agit, nisi tale existens, quale patiens fieri debet...

Self-confidence , Making love , Nature

“The spiritual experience of oneness conduces to the same insight as reasoning through science. Both convey the insight of fundamental interconnection between ourselves, other people, other forms of life, the biosphere and, ultimately, the universe. Science and spirituality, far from being mutually exclusive and conflicting elements, are complementary partners in the search for the path that can enable humanity to recover its oneness with the world. Science demonstrates the urgent and objective need for it; and spirituality testifies to its inherent value and supreme desirability.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Search , People , Universe , World

“The amount of money you have in you is the determinant factor of the nature of business you can do, not desires and emotions. Desires and Emotions will Cost you even the little capital you hold.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, P.36 (July 2018)

Money , Business , Nature

“Reach out a helping hand without any hidden agenda, or desire to achieve more in return.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Help

“When we are uncomfortable or anything unpleasant happens, we look to take refuge in something. Usually, we turn to food, alcohol, sex, drugs, money, power, or relationships. But none of these things give us the lasting protection or satisfaction you're looking for. When you understand you can't find lasting happiness in Samsara, then the desire to find true refuge becomes strong. In Buddhism, we take refuge in the three jewels — the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The Buddha is like the doctor who understands your disease and knows how to treat it; the Dharma, his teachings, is the medicine he prescribes; and the Sangha is the spiritual community that helps you to take the medicine. To take refuge is to finally seek protection from suffering in a way that can really help you. When we think about the ultimate nature of reality and what causes us to suffer — this is the true meaning of refuge.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Source: Discovering Buddhism, 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=226w04QMPzQ

Communication , Understanding , Nature , Thinking

“Be Happy and Humble
with
What you have
while
you
Seek and Achieve
All that you Desire and Require.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Happiness

“Such was his desire that when he mentioned that El Lazarillo was the work of an anonymous author, all he could imagine was how much he would now wish to become that absolute ANON.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

Imagination

“Prayer is the soul's sincere desire. Your desire is your prayer. It comes out of your deepest needs and it reveals the things you want in life.”

Joseph Murphy The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Source: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Life , Soul , Sincerity

“A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Business , Happiness

“I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn

Source: Tropic of Capricorn

Life

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

God , People

“Three things are necessary for man to be saved: knowledge of what is to be believed, knowledge of what is to be desired, and knowledge of what is to be done.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Two Precepts of Charity (1273)
Sermons on the Ten Commandments (Collationes in decem praeceptes, c. 1273), Prologue (opening sentence)
Variant translation: Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.
Original: (la) Tria sunt homini necessaria ad salutem: scilicit scientia credendorum, scientia desiderandorum, et scientia operandorum.

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”

Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities

Page 44.
Source: Invisible Cities (1972)
Context: With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.

Secret , Fear , Dreams

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

Frank Herbert book Chapterhouse: Dune

Source: Chapterhouse: Dune

Freedom

“All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

God , Faith , Heart

“Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

Men , Fear

“I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.”

Virginia Woolf book Moments of Being

Source: Moments of Being

Life

“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Study , Memory

“The strategic adversary is fascism… the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Love , Behavior

“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

"Talking," in A Lover's Discourse (1977)

“Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

Star , Light

“it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

“It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty (1859)

Men , Strong

“All men by nature desire knowledge.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Source: On Man in the Universe

Men , Nature , Knowledge

“When wisdom reaches the pinnacle of perfection, it will suppress the vicious instincts and injurious desires.”

Ali (601–661) cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol. 78, p. 6
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

Wisdom , Perfection

“To create and to annihilate material substance, cause it to aggregate in forms according to his desire, would be the supreme manifestation of the power of Man's mind, his most complete triumph over the physical world, his crowning achievement, which would place him beside his Creator, make him fulfill his Ultimate Destiny.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

World

“The central idea is that government fiscal policy, its spending and taxing, its borrowing and repayment of loans, its issue of new money and withdrawal of money, shall be undertaken with an eye only to the results of these actions on the economy and not to any established traditional doctrine what is sound and what is unsound …Government should adjust its rates of expenditure and taxation such that total spending is neither more or less than that which is sufficient to purchase the full employment level of output at current prices. If this means there is deficit, greater borrowing, "printing money," etc., then these things in themselves are neither good or bad, they are simply the means to the desired ends of full employment and price stability.”

Abba Lerner (1903–1982) American economist

On Functional Finance: (1943, pg.354) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=174849

Money , Idea

“If a person abandons his prayer such that he neither desires its rewards nor fears its chastisement, for such a person I do not care if he dies a Jew, a Christian or a Magian.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar, Volume 82, Page 202
Shi'ite Hadith

Fear , Personality

“There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon the practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application; and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.”

William Thomson (1824–1907) British physicist and engineer

Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883), published in Popular Lectures Vol. I, p. 73, as quoted in The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910) by Silvanus Phillips Thompson

Life , World , Soul , Mathematics