Quotes about desire
page 22

“She had called Martin a 'lie-hunter,' a 'truth-seeker.' They decided now that most people who call themselves 'truth-seekers'—persons who scurry about chattering of Truth as though it were a tangible separable thing, like houses or salt or bread—did not so much desire to find Truth as to cure their mental itch. In novels, these truth-seekers quested the 'secret of life' in laboratories which did not seem to be provided with Bunsen flames or reagents; or they went, at great expense and much discomfort from hot trains and undesirable snakes, to Himalayan monasteries, to learn from unaseptic sages that the Mind can do all sort of edifying things if one will but spend thirty or forty years in eating rice and gazing on one's navel. To these high matters Martin responded, 'Rot!' He insisted that there is no Truth but only many truths; that Truth is not a colored bird to be chased among the rocks and captured by its tail, but a skeptical attitude toward life. He insisted that no one could expect more than, by stubbornness or luck, to have the kind of work he enjoyed and an ability to become better acquainted with the facts of that work than the average job-holder.”

Sinclair Lewis book Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith (1925), Ch. 25

Life, People, Truth, Lie

“It will be seen that what I desire of a poem is a clear understanding of motive, and a just evaluation of feeling; the justice of the evaluation persisting even into the sound of the least important syllable. Such a poem is a perfect and complete act of the spirit; it calls upon the full life of the spirit; it is difficult of attainment, but I am aware of no good reason to be contented with less.”

Yvor Winters (1900–1968) American poet and literary critic

The Influence of Meter on Poetic Convention : Section III : The Scansion of Free Verse
Primitivism and Decadence : A Study of American Experimental Poetry (1937)

Life, Justice, Feeling, Motivation

“We should care about the interests of other people for the same reason we care about our own interests; for their needs and desires are comparable to our own.”

James Rachels book The Elements of Moral Philosophy

The Elements of Moral Philosophy (McGraw-Hill, 1999), p. 95

People

“I refuse to play the wink-wink-nudge-nudge game with readers. I don’t like whimsy because it doesn’t treat the fantastic seriously, and treating the fantastic seriously is one of the best ways of celebrating dialectical human consciousness there is. The one-sided celebration of the ego-driven contextually constrained instrumentally rational (as opposed to rational in a broader sense) is bureaucratic: the one-sided celebration of the subconscious, desire/fantasy driven is at best utopian, at worst sociopathic. The best fantasies—which include sf and horror—are constructed with a careful dialectic between conscious and subconscious.”

China Miéville (1972) English writer

interview with Joan Gordon

Way, Game, Sense

“For with what eyes of the mind was your Plato able to see that workhouse of such stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be modelled and built by God? What materials, what bars, what machines, what servants, were employed in so vast a work? How could the air, fire, water, and earth, pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? From whence arose those five forms, of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing to frame the mind and produce the senses? It is tedious to go through all, as they are of such a sort that they look more like things to be desired than to be discovered.”
Quibus enim oculis animi intueri potuit vester Plato fabricam illam tanti operis, qua construi a deo atque aedificari mundum facit; quae molitio, quae ferramenta, qui vectes, quae machinae, qui ministri tanti muneris fuerunt; quem ad modum autem oboedire et parere voluntati architecti aer, ignis, aqua, terra potuerunt; unde vero ortae illae quinque formae, ex quibus reliqua formantur, apte cadentes ad animum afficiendum pariendosque sensus? Longum est ad omnia, quae talia sunt, ut optata magis quam inventa videantur.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book I, section 19
De Natura Deorum – On the Nature of the Gods (45 BC)

God, World, Sense, Water

“Some starlit garden grey with dew,
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XII

Wine

“Since economics deals with human beings, the problems of its scientific treatment involves fundamental problems of the relations between man and his world. From a rational or scientific point of view, all practically real problems are problems in economics. The problem of life is to utilize resources "economically," to make them go as far as possible in the production of desired results. The general theory of economics is therefore simply the rationale of life. - In so far as it has any rationale! The first question in regard to scientific economics is this question of how far life is rational, how far its problems reduce to the form of using given means to achieve given ends. Now this, we shall contend, is not very far; the scientific view of life is a limited and partial view; life is at bottom an exploration in the field of values, an attempt to discover values, rather than on the basis of knowledge of them to produce and enjoy them to the greatest possible extent. We strive to "know ourselves," to find out our real wants, more than to get what we want. This fact sets a first and most sweeping limitation to the conception of economics as a science.”

Frank Knight (1885–1972) American economist

Source: "The limitations of scientific method in economics", 1924, p. 97 (2009 edition); Lead paragraph

Life, World, Question, Knowledge

“It is from.... Renaissance that individualism in painting dates; and I do not believe there is any use in looking in this direction if we desire to bring into being a fresh mural art, one that shall be at once popular, collective and contemporary.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Quote from The New Realism goes on, F. Léger, Art Front, February 1937 pp. 7-8
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1930's

Art, Painting

“"Groping" and "muddling through" is usually described as a solution by trial and error…. a series of trials, each of which attempts to correct the error committed by the preceding and, on the whole, the errors diminished as we proceed and the successive trials come closer and closer to the desired final result…. we may wish a better characterization…"successive trials" or "successive corrections" or "successive approximations."… You use successive approximations when… looking for a word in the dictionary… A mathematician may apply the term… to a highly sophisticated procedure… to treat some very advanced problem… that he cannot treat otherwise. The term even applies to science as a whole; the scientific theories which succeed each other, each claiming a better explanation… may appear as successive approximations to the truth.
Therefore, the teacher should not discourage his students from using trial and error—on the contrary, he should encourage the intelligent use of the fundamental method of successive approximations. Yet he should convincingly show that for… many… situations, straightforward algebra is more efficient than successive approximations.”

George Pólya (1887–1985) Hungarian mathematician

George Pólya, Mathematical Discovery: On Understanding, Learning, and Teaching Problem Solving (1962)

Truth, Error, Intelligence, Problem

“Because he did not care about his country, Lenin was prepared to promise everybody whatever they wanted without giving much thought to the future. The peasants wanted private land for their communes? Let them take it: eventually all the land will be confiscated and collectivized anyway. Until then, ‘looting the loot’ will win over, or at least neutralize, the peasantry. The workers demand to run the factories? Even though ‘workers’ control is a detestable syndico-anarchist slogan, there is no harm in granting their desires—for the time being. Once industries have been nationalized and subjected to general economic plan of production, ‘workers’ control’ will vanish of itself.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995), p. 44

Communication, Time, Future, Country

“It really began with my own personal evolution that brought me to a new way of thinking for ethical reasons: I wanted to get the violence out of my life and adopt a truly non-violent lifestyle. One night while pontificating over my pursuit of a non-violent lifestyle over steak dinner with a friend, he leaned forward and said, “This is all very nice, Michael, but if you really want to eliminate the violence in your life, you might want to start with that piece of flesh on your plate—because your desire for that taste of meat in your mouth is paying for the death of an animal.” When he said that, a little voice inside me said, “You know, he’s right.” And it didn’t take long before my leather shoes had to go, along with milk, cheese and everything else in my life with hidden violence attached that I could jettison, or at least, modify. I became vegan in my diet, lost 20 pounds, and saw my borderline high blood pressure drop to normal levels along with a reduction in my cholesterol levels. I then began applying this to my patients—and they saw the same great results.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

"Interview with Michael Klaper, M.D." https://web.archive.org/web/20141113185517/https://www.healthscience.org/about/nha-history/books-and-publications/health-science-summer-2013/interview-michael-klaper-md by Mark Huberman, National Health Association (29 April 2014).

Life, Death, Shoe, Way

“Like the use of the word 'concupiscence' in an earlier age to describe sexual desire, the use of the word 'pollution' to describe essential aspects of the productive activities of an industrial society represents an attempt to defame an entirely proper human capacity by means of using an evil sounding name for it.”

George Reisman (1937) American economist

Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)

Age, Evil

“May God give me the wisdom which I need and grant me what I so fervently desire, that is, to finish my studies as quickly as possible and he ordained, so that I can perform the practical duties of a clergyman.”

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

In a letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 19 Nov. 1877; 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 113), p. 18 as student, in Amsterdam, staying in the house of his uncle 1870s

Wisdom, God, Study

“In such a globalised world society there would be no place for war, for hegemonistic controls or cut-throat competition. India, is a country that has wrested its independence from one of the mightiest empires on earth by the method of non-violence. It is not the desire of this nation to solve such problems as we have with our neighbours by the use of force. With Pakistan, which was carved out of our body-politic, it was our desire to have friendly co-operation in a hundred ways after partition. But if India`s integrity and independence is threatened, it becomes the duty of the Indian State, -- its duty to the one-billion people who inhabit our vast land -- to defend them with all the resources and strength at its disposal…”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Press Information Bureau in: Speech By The President Shri K.R. Narayanan At The Banquet In Honour Of H.E. Mr. William J. Clinton President Of The United States Of America http://pib.myiris.com/speech/article.php3?fl=D33180, Press Information Bureau, 21 March 2000

War, People, World, Way

“It is conventional to refer to the United Nations in hushed tones of respect and awe, as if it were the repository of justice and equity, speaking almost with the voice of God if not yet acting with the power of God. It is no such thing. Despite the fair-seeming terminology of its charter and its declarations, the reality both of the Assembly and of the Security Council is a concourse of self-seeking nations, obeying their own prejudices and pursuing their own interests. They have not changed their individual natures by being aggregated with others in a system of bogus democracy…Does anybody seriously suppose that the members of the United Nations, or of the Security Council, have been actuated in their decisions on the Argentine invasion of the Falklands by a pure desire to see right done and wrong reversed? That was the last thing on their minds. Everyone of them, from the United States to Peru, calculated its own interests and consulted its own ambitions. What moral authority can attach a summation of self-interest and prejudice? I am not saying that nations ought not to pursue their own interests; they ought and, in any case, they will. What I am saying is that those interests are not sanctified by being tumbled into a mixer and shaken up altogether. An assembly of national spokesmen is not magically transmuted into a glorious company of saints and martyrs. Its only redeeming feature is its impotence…The United Nations is a colossal coating of humbug poured, like icing over a birthday cake, over the naked ambitions and hostilities of the nations.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

'We have the will, we don't need the humbug', The Times (12 June 1982), p. 12
1980s

God, Hostility, Justice, Democracy

“From the lowest and broadest stratum of Society, where the births are by the million, there was born, almost in our own memory, a Robert Burns; son of one who "had not capital for his poor moor-farm of Twenty Pounds a year." Robert Burns never had the smallest chance to got into Parliament, much as Robert Burns deserved, for all our sakes, to have been found there. For the man—it was not known to men purblind, sunk in their poor dim vulgar element, but might have been known to men of insight who had any loyalty or any royalty of their own—was a born king of men: full of valor, of intelligence and heroic nobleness; fit for far other work than to break his heart among poor mean mortals, gauging beer! Him no Tenpound Constituency chose, nor did any Reforming Premier: in the deep-sunk British Nation, overwhelmed in foggy stupor, with the loadstars all gone out for it, there was no whisper of a notion that it could be desirable to choose him,—except to come and dine with you, and in the interim to gauge.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)

Men, Intelligence, Birth, Beer

“A manufacturing organization being a live, human thing, is like a municipality. Many of our shops are as fruitful fields for riddance of graft as are many of our cities. The graft in the shop consists mostly in the distortion of the managing and planning body into a wire-pulling and influence machine with easy berths filled by incompetents or idlers. This condition often exists not because of any intentional desire to be disloyal on the part of the employees, but simply on account of the work being allowed to drift without systematic attention to departmental organization.”

Hugo Diemer (1870–1937) American mechanical engineer

Source: "Industrial Engineering," 1905, p. 67

Parting

“Pride swells the brain. Vanity carries with it smoke, minds. Hatred tightens the heart. Love warms the lungs. Admiration stops the heart. We breathe through desire. We want to pump up all that delights, and dilates. Sadness is inaction. The love that comes from the blood, the love that comes from the soul.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Love, Sadness, Soul, Heart

“The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

Vol. II, p. 342.
The Life of Sir William Osler (1925)

Animals

“There is not a single desirable attribute which, lacking in a plant, may not be bred into it. Choose what improvement you wish in a flower, a fruit, or a tree, and by crossing, selection, cultivation, and persistence you can fix this desirable trait irrevocably.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Flowers, Tree

“It is necessary, therefore, if we would weld an idea solidly and indestructibly to a desired action, that we should fuse them together by the heat of an emotion.”

Jules Payot (1859–1940) French educationist

Source: The Education of the Will (1920), p. 100

Idea

“My experience is that everything is bliss. But the desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain. (…) for the sake of pleasure you are committing many sins. And the fruits of sin are suffering and death.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Desire and fear
Source: "I am That." P.82.

Death, Pain, Pleasure, Suffering

“Only when your intent and actions are in alignment can you create the reality you desire.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 135

Reality

“There is nothing necessary or desirable for human nutrition to be found in meats or flesh foods, which are not found in and derived from vegetable products.”

John Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943) American physician

Source: The New Dietetics, What to Eat and How: A Guide to Scientific Feeding in Health and Disease, Battle Creek, MI: The Modern Medicine Publishing Co., 1921, p. 366 https://books.google.it/books?id=TNsMAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA366.

Food

“With many sovereign states, with no system of law enforceable among them, with each state judging its grievances and ambitions according to the dictates of its own reason or desire - conflict, sometimes leading to war, is bound to occur.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VI, The Third Image, p. 159

War, Law

“When he was dead I raised myself to my feet and I looked about me. Everything was still. A loneliness had come upon my soul.
There was darkness everywhere now but in the forest. And even here there were wisps of grey, as if evil crept in.
I lifted my head to the sky and I shook my fist. “Oh, I reject you. I reject your Heaven and I reject your Hell. Do as you wish with me, but know that your desires are petty and your ambitions have no meaning!””

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

I addressed no one. I addressed the universe. I addressed a void.

Chapter 15 (p. 154)
The von Bek family, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981)

Soul, Hell, Universe, Evil

“The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 146

Appearance, Parting

“Your Excellency, I am in receipt of His Majesty's royal order, which your excellency communicated to me on the 6th inst., accepting the offer of my work, the 'Caprichos' on eighty copper plate engraved with aqua-fortis by my hand, which I will hand to the Royal Calografia with the lot of prints which I had printed by way of precaution, amounting to two hundred and forty copies of eighty prints, in order not to defraud His Majesty in the least, and for my own satisfaction as to my mode of procedure. I am very grateful for the pension of twelve thousand reals which His Majesty has been pleased to grant to my son [Xavier Goya], for which I offer my best thanks to His Majesty, and to your excellency.... I only desire your excellency's orders, and that you may keep well. May God preserve your excellency's valuable life for many years... Your excellency's obedient and grateful servant, Franco de Goya.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter to the Minister, Don Miguel Cayetano Soler, Madrid, October 9, 1803; as quoted in the 'Gazette des Beaux-Arts', 1860, p. 241, and reproduced in facsimile in Mr. Calvert's monograph, p. 88; also by Valerian von Loga: Francisco de Goya, Berlin, 1903, p. 77
1800s

Life, God, Way, Communication

“His attack on Maldev, Raja of Jodhpur, (was due) partly to his religious bigotry and a desire to convert the temples of the Hindus into mosques.”

Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India

Sher Shah Sur (AD 1538-1545) Jodhpur (Rajasthan) Tarikh-i-Da‘udi in Sharma, Sri Ram, Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, Bombay, 1962.

“The atrocities perpetrated by the police and the military on the innocent Hindus, especially the Scheduled Castes of Habibgarh in the District of Sylhet deserve description. Innocent men and women were brutally tortured, some women ravished, their houses raided and properties looted by the police and the local Muslims. Military pickets were posted in the area. The military not only oppressed these people and took away stuff forcibly from Hindu houses, but also forced Hindus to send their women-folk at night to the camp to satisfy the carnal desires of the military. This fact also I brought to your notice. You assured me of a report on the matter, but unfortunately no report was forthcoming.”

Jogendra Nath Mandal (1904–1968) Pakistani politician

Excerpted from the resignation letter of J. N. Mandal, Minister for Law and Labour, Government of Pakistan, October 8, 1950. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal https://biblio.wiki/wiki/Resignation_letter_of_Jogendra_Nath_Mandal

Women, Men, People, Housing

“Now begins the true pilgrimage: Parsifal with the lance in hand! Here begins the symbol of renunciation! The renunciation lies, symbolically expressed, in the words, with the lance in hand! A renunciation is first, then, a renunciation in the true sense of the word, when one does not do something that one has recognized as desirable and has wished to do. The sojourn of Parsifal with the lance in hand corresponds to the 40 days that Christ shall have spent in the wastelands. It corresponds to the trials and tribulations which all candidates of all the old religions, of all mystical secret societies etc. had to undergo, before they could become initiates. This sojourn also corresponds therefore, to the 40 days of the fast and abstention, which yet today the initiates of a mystical society impose on their candidates as a test before they are left to study the mystical secret, salvational — teachings.”

Theodor Reuss (1855–1923) German singer

II. Main Part : The Unveiling of the Secret.
Parsifal and the Secret of the Graal Unveiled (1914)

Secret, Religion, Sense, Study

“We must ask, not whether an anarcho-capitalist society would be safe from a power grab by the men with the guns (safety is not an available option), but whether it would be safer than our society is from a comparable seizure of power by the men with the guns. I think the answer is yes. In our society, the men who must engineer such a coup are politicians, military officers, and policemen, men selected precisely for the characteristic of desiring power and being good at using it. They are men who already believe that they have a right to push other men around - that is their job. They are particularly well qualified for the job of seizing power. Under anarcho-capitalism the men in control of protection agencies are selected for their ability to run an efficient business and please their customers. It is always possible that some will turn out to be secret power freaks as well, but it is surely less likely than under our system where the corresponding jobs are labeled 'non-power freaks need not apply.”

David D. Friedman book The Machinery of Freedom

Source: The Machinery of Freedom, 1973, pp. 123-124

Men, Secret, Business, Thinking

“I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness. I desire from the abyss of my own nothingness and vileness to cry unto God that He might cause me to do as I ought, and to be as I ought.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 331.

God, Lie, Feeling, Heart

“Nor does spirituality mean the moulding of the whole type of the national being to suit the limited dogmas, forms, tenets of a particular religion, as was often enough attempted by the old societies, an idea which still persists in many minds by the power of old mental habit and association; clearly such an attempt would be impossible, even if it were desirable, in a country full of the most diverse religious opinions and harbouring too three such distinct general forms as Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, to say nothing of the numerous special forms to which each of these has given birth.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Renaissance in India (1918)

Religion, Idea, Birth, Country

“Each gleaming point of light is like a seed
Dilating swiftly to coiling fires.
Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face,
Each hurrying face records its strange desires.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Light

“Exile desire
For what is not. This is the barrenness
Of the fertile thing that can attain no more.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

"Credences of Summer"
Collected Poems (1954)

“I have no joy in strife,
Peace is my great desire;
Yet God forbid I lose my life
Through fear to face the fire.

A peaceful man must fight
For that which peace demands,—
Freedom and faith, honor and right,
Defend with heart and hands.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The Peaceful Warrior, st. 1-2 (May 1918).

Life, God, Fear, Peace

“That as the admission of States by Congress under the constitution was an act of legislation, and in the nature of a contract or compact between the States admitted and the others admitting, why should not this contract or compact be regarded as of like character with all other civil contracts liable to be rescinded by mutual agreement of both parties? The seceding States have rescinded it on their part, they have resumed their sovereignty. Why cannot the whole question be settled, if the north desire peace, simply by the Congress, in both branches, with the concurrence of the President, giving their consent to the separation, and a recognition of our independence?”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Peace, Question, Nature, Parting

“You may keep your ten thousand talents; I am not in want of money, I have taken enough. Why only the half of your kingdom to the Euphrates? You offer me the part in exchange for the whole. Your daughter whom you speak of, I shall marry if I choose, whether given by you or not. Your family is safe; no ransom is required of you; come here yourself and make your suit to me, you shall have them free. If you desire our friendship, you have only to ask.”

Mary Renault book The Persian Boy

Alexander's answer to the peace treaty offered by Darius III, p. 38
The Persian Boy (1972)

Money, Friendship, Family, Parting

“A war minister is able to force the adoption of any measure desired by the Camp or to block any measure that meets his disapproval.”

Sadao Araki (1877–1966) Japanese general

Quoted in "Shakai kagaku tokyu" - Page 883 - by Waseda Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyujo, Waseda Daigaku Ajia Taiheiyo Kenkyu Senta - Social sciences - 1992

War

“Mathematics and philosophy are cultivated by two different classes of men: some make them an object of pursuit, either in consequence of their situation, or through a desire to render themselves illustrious, by extending their limits; while others pursue them for mere amusement, or by a natural taste which inclines them to that branch of knowledge. It is for the latter class of mathematicians and philosophers that this work is chiefly intended j and yet, at the same time, we entertain a hope that some parts of it will prove interesting to the former. In a word, it may serve to stimulate the ardour of those who begin to study these sciences; and it is for this reason that in most elementary books the authors endeavour to simplify the questions designed for exercising beginners, by proposing them in a less abstract manner than is employed in the pure mathematics, and so as to interest and excite the reader's curiosity. Thus, for example, if it were proposed simply to divide a triangle into three, four, or five equal parts, by lines drawn from a determinate point within it, in this form the problem could be interesting to none but those really possessed of a taste for geometry. But if, instead of proposing it in this abstract manner, we should say: "A father on his death-bed bequeathed to his three sons a triangular field, to be equally divided among them: and as there is a well in the field, which must be common to the three co-heirs, and from which the lines of division must necessarily proceed, how is the field to be divided so as to fulfill the intention of the testator?"”

Jean-Étienne Montucla (1725–1799) French mathematician

This way of stating it will, no doubt, create a desire in most minds to discover the method of solving the problem; and however little taste people may possess for real science, they will be tempted to try iheir ingenuity in finding the answer to such a question at this. Source: Preface to Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. (1803), p. ii; As cited in: Tobias George Smollett. The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature http://books.google.com/books?id=T8APAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA410, Volume 38, (1803), p. 410

Death, Men, People, Books

“I believe passionately that Christianity is a way of life, not a theological system with which one must be in intellectual agreement. I feel that Christ would admit into discipleship anyone who sincerely desired to follow him, and allow that disciple to make his creed out of his experience; to listen, to consider, to pray, to follow, and ultimately to believe only those convictions about which the experience of fellowship made him sure.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Preface, p. 16, sentences 2,3.
The Christian Agnostic (1965)

Life, Way, Feeling, Passion

“THE TERM (Sustainability) HAS BECOME so widely used that it is in danger of meaning nothing. It has been applied to all manner of activities in an effort to give those activities the gloss of moral imperative, the cachet of environmental enlightenment. “Sustainable” has been used variously to mean “politically feasible,” “economically feasible,” “not part of a pyramid or bubble,” “socially enlightened,” “consistent with neoconservative small-government dogma,” “consistent with liberal principles of justice and fairness,” “morally desirable,” and, at its most diffuse, “sensibly far-sighted.””

Eric Zencey (1953–2019) American writer

Eric Zencey, " Theses on Sustainability https://orionmagazine.org/article/theses-on-sustainability/" in Orion, May/June 2010.

Justice, Effort, Parting

“Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general, of which he had known nothing before, and of freedom in his love — and he was content, but not for long. He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires — longing. Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire and an object.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Love, Life, Men, Happiness

“Twenty-one years old! I never doubted my vital force. But how is it to fare with my chosen art? The recognition that at bottom I am a poet, after all, should be no hindrance in the plastic arts! And should I really have to be a poet, Lord knows what else I should desire. Certainly, a sea swells within me, for I feel. It is a hopeless state, to feel in such a way that the storm rages on all sides at once and that nowhere is a lord who commands the chaos.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1900), # 121, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1895 - 1902

Art, Way, Feeling, Rage

“Challenge, and not desire, lies at the heart of seduction.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

Source: 1980s, The Ecstasy of Communication (1987), p. 57

Heart

“Although Bertrand Russell suffered unpopularity in some quarters for his role as a political dissenter, he enjoyed that role immensely. There was more than a touch of exhibitionism in the riskless sit-downs of his last years when he made well-publicized gestures to 'Ban the Bomb' that were as futile as they were ill-advised. I once wondered aloud to him whether his temperamental bias toward nonconformity and dissent was an expression not so much of intellectual courage as of the aristocrat's disdain of the commoner and his desire to épater le bourgeois. He replied with disarming frankness: 'Hook, I think you have something there…”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

Out of Step (1985)

Courage, Thinking, Suffering

“The basic value of any proposition is its commercial aspect, and naturally the first query of inventor, capitalist and layman is : "What conditions exist that will make a market for automobiles or create a desire in the public mind for their use?" Some will say progression, the spirit of which surrounds us everywhere; others say, expediency and the desire for saving- minutes and even seconds; others, again, their convenience and readiness for instant use; all of which are true but do not in a broad sense answer the question, but create another as to what has made all these things desirable on the part of the public as things necessary to its comfort and welfare.”

Clinton Edgar Woods (1863) American engineer

Source: The Electric Automobile (1900), p. 1, First paragraph of first chapter entitled "General conditions surrounding the introduction and use of automobiles"

Question, Nature, Sense, Parting

“Many have been led astray by the Qur'an:
by clinging to that rope many have fallen into the well.
There is no fault in the rope, O perverse man,
for it was you who had no desire to reach the top.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

III, 4210-11
Jewels of Remembrance (1996)

“I'm the last person he called that night. I wonder, how many girls didn't answer before he got to fat freshman me? Am I in his phone as Schumer? Probably. But I was here, and I wanted to be held and touched and felt desired, despite everything. I wanted to be with him. I imagined us on campus together, holding hands, proving, "Look! I am lovable! And this cool older guy likes me!"”

Amy Schumer (1981) American comedian and actor

I can't be the troll doll I'm afraid I've become.
Ms. Foundation for Women’s Gloria Awards and Gala [Vulture, http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/read-amy-schumers-ms-gala-speech.html, May 2014, Read Amy Schumer’s Powerful Speech About Confidence, Jennifer, Vineyard]

Guy, Imagination, Girl, Personality

“Finally, have we lamented along with the Saints that we see ourselves constrained to endure in the world; and have we desired to leave it in order to flee the danger that there will be something it corrupts?”

Louis Tronson (1622–1700) French Roman Catholic priest

Enfin, gémissons-nous souvent avec les Saints de nous voir contraints de demeurer encore dans le monde; et avons-nous désiré d'en sortir pour fuir le danger qu'il y a de s'y corrompre? Examens particuliers sur divers sujets, p. 322 http://books.google.com/books?id=esY9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA322 Examens particuliers sur divers sujets [Examination of Conscience upon Special Subjects] (1690)

World

“You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2002, Letter to the American people (2002)

Life, Religion, Law, Question

“Three things there be in man's opinion dear,
Fame, many friends, and fortune's dignities:
False visions all, which in our sense appear,
To sanctify desire's idolatry.”

Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554–1628) English politician

CVI.
Caelica (1633)

Sense, Appearance, Falseness

“But it's always intriguing to discover the ways in which desire fuels the systems of the world.”

Samuel R. Delany book The Mad Man

Source: The Mad Man (1994), p. 257

World, Way

“Now I alone sit by the fire,
And one remains of three;
For two have got their heart's desire
And left their grief to me.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Collected Poems (1990), p. 71

Heart

“So long as we love life for itself, we seldom dread the losing it. When we desire life for the attainment of an object, we recognize the frailty of its texture. But, side by side with this sense of insecurity, there is a vital faith in our invulnerability to the shaft of death while engaged in any task that seems assigned by Providence as our proper thing to do, and which the world would have cause to mourn for should we leave it unaccomplished.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)

Love, Life, Death, World

“If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

Poor Richard's Almanack (1736), http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/frapos/index.html November Poor Richard's Almanack

“With the maturity of his soul, a man desires to probe the depths of life, he desires to discover the power latent within him, he longs to know the sources and goal of his life, he yearns to understand the aim and meaning of his life, he wishes to understand the inner significance of things, and he wants to uncover all that is covered by name and form. He seeks insight into cause and effect, he wants to touch the mystery of time and space, and he wishes to find the missing link between God and man — where man ends, where God begins.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

The Unity of Religious Ideals, Part I : Seeking for the Ideal.
The Spiritual Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan

Life, God, Soul, Understanding

“The project of organizing a democratic political movement entails the hope that one's ideas and beliefs are not merely idiosyncratic but speak to vital human needs, interests and desires, and therefore will be persuasive to many and ultimately most people. But this is a very different matter from deciding to put forward only those ideas presumed (accurately or not) to be compatible with what most people already believe.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"We Need a Radical Left", The Nation (29 June 1998) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political/Radical_Left.html

People, Hope, Idea

“The idea that a culture can preserve its originality by barricading itself against foreign influences is an old illusion that has always produced the opposite of the desired result. Isolation breeds sterility. It is the free circulation of cultural products and talents that allows each society to perpetuate and renew itself.”

Jean-François Revel (1924–2006) French writer and philosopher

Source: 2000s, Anti-Americanism (2003), p. 105

Idea

“The range of socially permissible and desirable satisfaction is greatly enlarged, but through this satisfaction, the Pleasure Principle is reduced—deprived of the claims which are irreconcilable with the established society. Pleasure, thus adjusted, generates submission.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), p. 75

Pleasure

“Henceforth let no woman believe a man's oath, let none believe that a man's speeches can be trustworthy. They, while their mind desires something and longs eagerly to gain it, nothing fear to swear, nothing spare to promise; but as soon as the lust of their greedy mind is satisfied, they fear not then their words, they heed not their perjuries.”
Nunc iam nulla viro iuranti femina credat, nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles; quis dum aliquid cupiens animus praegestit apisci, nil metuunt iurare, nihil promittere parcunt: sed simul ac cupidae mentis satiata libido est, dicta nihil metuere, nihil periuria curant.

Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus

LXIV
Carmina

Fear

“A Satanist knows there is nothing wrong with being greedy, as it only means that he wants more than he already has. Envy means to look with favor upon the possessions of others, and to be desirous of obtaining similar things for oneself. Envy and greed are the motivating forces of ambition - and without ambition, very little of any importance would be accomplished.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Motivation, Envy

“All desire springs from a lack, which it strives continually to fill.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Source: 1980s, Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), Chapter 5, p. 145 (See also: Rene Girard)

Spring

“Addiction depends upon keeping the multiplicity of our desires unconscious. When I invite all that I am into awareness, I realize that no one substance, activity, or person has the capacity to satisfy me fully. I leave aside the security of the fix and begin the adventure of falling in love with the multiplicity of the self and the world.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 140

Love, World, Dependency, Personality

“The intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated. It is one of humankind's deep-rooted, primordial urges. Primitive people decorated their implements and cult objects with a desire to beautify and enhance.... it is a sense emanating from the urge for perfection and creative accomplishment.”

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) Swiss artist

Quote of 1927, on The Artstory: 'Sophie Taeuber-Arp http://www.theartstory.org/artist-taeuber-arp-sophie.htm, Swiss Multi-media, applied arts, performance artist, and textile designer'

People, Sense, Perfection

“You a naughty girl and you're so fine
Liking em strings on your waist line
You mi desire, you ah hotter than fire
Gal I like di way you shake yuh behind”

Slim Burna (1988) Nigerian singer and record producer

"Bad Man" (track 8)
I'm On Fire (2013)

Way, Girl

“Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Attributed

Fashion, Appearance, Science

““Tell me! What do you think of life? What do you think of ambition? What do you think of science, of learning, of love, of fame, of glory, of aspiration?”
“I think… that those are all very different things.”
“You are wrong. They are all one thing—a cunt.”
“Sir?”
“A cunt! Consider: The cunt is a nasty, ugly, filthy thing. Yet we desire it so greatly as to be willing to suffer any indignity to attain it. For the sake of it we labor and preen and whisper sugary words. We go to the theatre with flowers in our arms, climb over back walls by moonlight, write sonnets, jump out of windows with our trousers in our hands, give dangerous men their choice of weapons. We build love-nests for it sake, and cities, and civilizations. It is our all, our only, our ideal. It has created us and made us great. Such is life, such is ambition, such is science, learning, love, fame, glory, and aspiration. The Eternal Cunt,” he said significantly, “draws us onward.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 16, “The Wild Hunt” (p. 276)

Love, Life, Men, Flowers

“Desire is the base of all disharmony in this world.”

Scott Shaw (1958) American actor

The Warrior is Silent

World

“Your work creates a foundation for these children's future, … But most of all, I've been struck by the children's own desire to solve their problems.”

Queen Mathilde of Belgium (1973) Belgian royal

unicef.org http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/reallives_4443.html

Children, Problem, Future

“All these our Lord shewed me in the first Sight, with time and space to behold it. And the bodily sight stinted, but the spiritual sight dwelled in mine understanding, and I abode with reverent dread, joying in that I saw. And I desired, as I durst, to see more, if it were His will, or else longer time the same.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The First Revelation, Chapter 8

Understanding, Time, Joy

“I knew Muhammad Mujeeb personally. He was Head of the Department of History and Shaikh-ul-Jamia… In 1972, however, there was a mild 'confrontation' between him and me. Sometime that year there was a Selection Committee meeting for the post of Professor of History in Delhi University. I was then a Reader and candidate for the post of Professor. Mujeeb was an 'expert'… Mujeeb asked me a question: "Why did the Hindu convert to Islam?" It was a loaded question carrying the suggestion that the initiative for conversion came from the Hindu. In all probability Mujeeb expected me to say that the Hindus suffered from the injustices of the caste system, that Islam was spiritually so great and its message of social equality so attractive that the Hindus queued up for conversion the moment they came in contact with Islamic invaders. A tactful candidate (not a truthful one) would have said what Mujeeb desired, but my answer was different. I said that Hindus did not (voluntarily) convert to Islam; they were converted, often forcibly, as told by Muslim chroniclers. Muslim invaders and rulers felt proud of their achievements in the fields of loot and destruction, enslavement and proselytization. Their chroniclers, writing at their command or independently, speak about their achievements in these spheres in glowing terms. They repeatedly write about the choice offered to the Hindus - "Islam or death". Mujeeb expected a different answer. I was not selected.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999), Chapter 6

Death, Truth, History, Question

“In the images of celebrating Iraqis we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices and everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)

Love, Women, Men, People

“This place was truly the highest and the lowest of all worlds — the most beautiful senses, the most exquisite emotions… the most malevolent desires, the darkest deeds. Perhaps it was meant to be so. Perhaps without the lows, the highs could not be reached.”

Stephenie Meyer book The Host

Wanderer, p. 141
The Host (2008)

World, Beauty, Sense

“I do not intrude to tell you--for you must know already--that a great proportion of those who triumphed in you election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)

Pain, Disappointment, Thinking, Country

“Forgotten the strife;
Now the need to kill
Has died like fire,
And the need to love
Has replaced desire”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

The Unicorn in Captivity (1955)

Love

“From the fundamental nature of the Philistine, it follows that, in regard to others, as he has no intellectual but only physical needs, he will seek those who are capable of satisfying the latter not the former. And so of all the demands he makes of others the very smallest will be that of any outstanding intellectual abilities. On the contrary, when he comes across these they will excite his antipathy and even hatred. For here he has a hateful feeling of inferiority and also a dull secret envy which he most carefully attempts to conceal even from himself; but in this way it grows sometimes into a feeling of secret rage and rancour. Therefore it will never occur to him to assess his own esteem and respect in accordance with such qualities, but they will remain exclusively reserved for rank and wealth, power and influence, as being in his eyes the only real advantages to excel in which is also his desire.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 344–345
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Hate, Secret, Way, Feeling

“As he drove, he was conscious of the web around him. The web of streets, of people, of places, and of things. The other web, too, the new world. This parallel place, with email address private driveways, it sdotcom marketplaces. You could find out so much there, running reality through your hands likea god's. Everything on the web is information; but everything is on the web, these days; so the world has become information. Everything has become an utterance of this thing, of this bank of words and images: everything is something it is saying, or has said. It's about buying, and looking, about our habits and desires, about contact with others, about voyeurism and aspiration and addiction. It is us boiled down — our essence, for better or worse. It is no longer passive. It is telling the story of us, and sometimes that story needs work.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 16

God, People, World, Reality

“Their [the political leaders'] skill consists in a quick perception of the people's wishes as to the road which they desire to travel. This ascertained, the leader places himself at the head of the moving column, and shouts loudly for the people to advance on his lead, which he assures them is direct, suitable, and pleasant. …They will diverge no inch to please him, but he must crook and turn as their wayward fancy may indicate. He must bear all their censure, too, when the path taken leads into a quagmire; and, notwithstanding the mud and bruises, of which he obtains a double portion, he must maintain by argument that no other road could have been taken consistently with the prosperity, honour, and security of a great, wise, free, and virtuous people.”

Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker

The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)

People, Travel

“The first fallacy of Communism is its attempt to over-simplify history. Marx and Engels attempted to change history from a fluid stream, fed by human activities from millions of tributaries, into a fixed, undeviating, pre-determined course of progress which could be charted in the past and predicted for the future on the basis of a single, simple criterion - economics. Obviously economics have played a vital and powerful role in human history but so have climate, topography, access to oceans and inland waterways, mechanical inventions, scientific discoveries, national and racial affinities, filial affection, religion, desire for explanatory adventure, sentiments of loyalty, patriotism and a multitude of other factors.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Religion, History, Communication, Change

“His meat craze had got out of hand. All day I heard him frying cheap steaks, the odor creeping under my door. It gave me a mad desire for meat…But he never offered me so much as the scraps from his plate.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Madness

“By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness.... I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory.... Let "desire" be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)
Variant: By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness... I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory... Let “desire” be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping.

Life, World, Dreams, Hope

“I have no desire to prove anything by it. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

from Astaire's autobiography Steps in Time, 1959, p. 325.

Dance

“Our century of war, militarism, and political terror has produced great — and successful — advocates of true peace, among whom Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., are the paramount examples. The considerable success that they achieved testifies to the presence, in the midst of violence, of an authentic and powerful desire for peace and, more important, of the proven will to make the necessary sacrifices.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Citizenship Papers (2003), The Failure of War

War, Peace, Success

“By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.”

Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) French philosopher

En anéantissant les désirs, on anéantit l'âme, & tout homme sans passion n'a en lui ni principe d'action, ni motif pour se mouvoir.
A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties & His Education, Vol. I (1773)

Motivation, Passion

“Well I think that my main concern is that there is a market lack of desire for quote-unquote art that people are creating and appreciating. I think because there’s a lack of desire for that, which translates to the creation and elevation of art that then thereby lack substance because there’s no desire for it, there’s no appreciation for it. It self-perpetuates a world in which the hollow, the vapid and the greedy are elevated and revered. That bothers me because art is so important whether it’s design, fine art, film, fashion, things that are important to the world. It’s what makes me want to wake up in the morning, it drives me.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

Asked what concerns him the most about the society today. The Aquarian, November 2009 http://www.theaquarian.com/2009/11/06/interview-davey-havok-afi-conspicuous-composition/

People, World, Art, Quotes