Quotes about desire
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“I hadn't even been looking, not for you, and now you were my heart's desire.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Heart

“Give me 100 preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God; such alone will shake the gates of hell.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

God, Fear, Hell

“No. The answer was no, I was not all right. I nearly got knocked out. Knocked out by desire! Desire for forbidden dissimilar molecules”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Forever Princess

“Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Life, Beauty, Passion

“I don't believe Barrons is out to destroy mankind. I don't think he particularly cares much for mankind, but I don't think he has any deep-seated desire to see us all wiped out.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Thinking

“If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself

“Most People have a desire to look for the exception instead of the desire to become exceptional.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

People

“Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.”

Robert Hass (1941) American poet

Source: Praise

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night (1960)

Life, God, Children, Faith

“Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

(1997)
Source: Warrior of the Light

Beauty, Light, Learning, Perfection

“Their desire was silent yet magnificent, like a thousand daisies attuning their faces toward the path of the sun.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Sun

“I have no desire to be dominated. Honestly I don't. And yet I find myself becoming angry when I'm not.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women

“I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Hope

“Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated – in the main, abominably – because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985

“At the deepest level people are madder than they want to believe. You will find that they fear being eaten, and are alarmed by their desire to devour others.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Something to Tell You

People, Fear

“We are captives, even if our wheat grows over the fences/ and swallows rise from our broken chains./ We are captives of what we love, what we desire, and what we are.”

Mahmoud Darwich (1941–2008) Palestinian writer

Source: Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems

Love

“Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset, to touch the one you love, to try again.

'Hell would be waking up and wanting nothing,' he agrees.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Love, Life, Hunger, Hell

“You will see that the things you desire most are the very things that bring you the greatest sorrow.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Phantom

“Thinking is the desire to gain reality by means of ideas.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Idea, Thinking, Reality

“Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

The Serpent, in Pt. I, Act I
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)

Imagination

“My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

“God’s will and desire—His pleasure—is that we love Him. We cannot please God unless we love Him. We cannot love Him unless we know Him, and we cannot know Him unless we have faith in Him.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: The Purpose and Power of Love & Marriage

Love, God, Pleasure, Faith

“… the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

“I don't know exactly what covetous is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else's virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Happiness, Beauty

“Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Fools, Personality

“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. "He who desires but acts not," wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, "Breeds pestilence.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Personality

“I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire.”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Anthem (1937)

Love, Men

“For I have had too much
Of apple-picking:I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“Herein lies the heart and soul of the nations.
Their right to be free men,
Their desire to live in peace,
Their courage to seek out truth,
Herein lies the Sword of Shannara.”

Terry Brooks book The Sword of Shannara

Source: The Sword of Shannara

Men, Truth, Peace, Soul

“We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Love, Disappointment, Reality

“I'm a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

“When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.”

W. Clement Stone (1902–2002) American New Thought author

Feeling

“It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

Soul, Passion

“When I say 'I will be true to you' I am drawing a quiet space beyond the reach of other desires.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Drawing

“And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Men, Error, Nature

“For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Lair of Dreams

Dreams, Sleep

“Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?”

Neil Jordan (1950) Irish filmmaker and fiction writer

Source: The Dream of a Beast

Suffering, Memory

“I’ll put it out there: I am scarred by the nostalgic indicipherability of my own desires; I an engulfed by the intimidating unknown, pushed through darkness and dragged down by the irretrievable past sweetness of my memories.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

Memory, Past

“Wonder is the desire of knowledge.”

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

Knowledge

“Any humane and reasonable person must conclude that if the ends, however desireable, are uncertain and the means are horrible and certain, these means must not be employed.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Source: Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice

Personality

“I desire therefore I exist.”

Angela Carter book The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

Source: The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

“Conditions of thought, memory, and desire, persuaded by impulse and irrationality, are influenced as well by personal aesthetics and private meanings.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Memory, Personality

“If you desire to help thy friend, do so in a way that will not bring thy friend's burdens upon thyself.”

George S. Clason book The Richest Man in Babylon

Source: The Richest Man in Babylon

Way, Help

“Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death… others through sheer inability to cross the street.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

The Waves (1931)

Death

“All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

“Are you going to be playing for the pure thrill of unreluctant desire?”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.”

Isabel Allende book Eva Luna

Source: Eva Luna

Life, Color, Idea, Reality

“My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Love, Fear

“You get lost out of a desire to be lost. But in the place called lost strange things are found…”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

“And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful by Cinna’s hands, desirable by Peeta’s confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Beauty

“What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Source: My Life In Pictures

Life, Wise, Life

“It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town… he can walk out the gate empty-handed and without anxiety.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

“I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books…. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Women, Men, Books, History

“Beauty without wit offers nothing but the enjoyment of its material charms, whilst witty ugliness captivates by the charms of the mind, and at last fulfils all the desires of the man it has captivated.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Source: The Story of My Life

Beauty

“I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

“Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.”

Bernhard Schlink book The Reader

Source: The Reader

Fear, Memory, Passion

“Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Happiness, Thinking

“I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of an ancestral promptings and urgings, a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, of all of which I am the sum total.”

Charlie Chaplin book My Autobiography

Source: My Autobiography (p. 271 Simon and Schuster 1964 edition)

Dreams, History

“It's bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Variant: It's b******* to think of friendship and romance being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variatons of the same desire to be close.
Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Friendship, Thinking

“This person realizes that staying home means blowing off everyone this person has ever known. But the desire to stay in is very strong. This person wants to run a bath and then read in bed.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Home, Strong, Reading, Personality

“From an evolutionary point of view, most emotions - fear, desire, anger - serve some practical purpose, but nostalgia is a useless, futile thing because it is a longing for something that is permanently lost….”

David Nicholls book Us

Source: Us

Fear, Nostalgia, Anger

“Many of us have convinced ourselves that compromise is necessary to achieve our goals, that all of our goals are not attainable so we should eliminate the extraneous, prioritize our desires, and accept less than the moon.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Fear

“Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Love

“Never, never underestimate the power of desire. If you want to live badly enough, you can live. The great question, at least for me, was: How do I decide I want to live?”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Question

“The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning.”

John Dewey book Experience and Education

Source: Experience and Education

Learning

“We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain.”

Guy De Maupassant Bel-Ami

Source: Bel-Ami

Love, Life, Death, Money

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.”

Ann Brashares book Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

Deep, Hope, Heart Touching

“Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?”

Agatha Christie book Lord Edgware Dies

Source: Lord Edgware Dies

Passion

“She knew what it felt like to tremble like that before touching someone -- desire so acute that it became despair.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Ironside

Despair

“There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe…. The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

The Old King, p. 22.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)

Happiness, People, Truth, World

“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

Attributed to John Stuart Mill in The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health, Vol. LXXXV (September 1887), p. 170
Disputed

Happiness, Learning, Motivational, Deep

“I am dead. I have no desire for you. My body no longer wants the one who doesn’t love.”

Marguerite Duras book The Lover

Source: The Lover

Love, Dead

“A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, in desiring attaining himself, helps others to attain.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Help

“Desire backed by faith knows no such word as impossible.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Faith

“I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Feeling, Communication

“In a few minutes I heard the books' voices: a low, steady, unsupressible hum. I'd heard it many times before. I've always had a finely tuned ear for a library's accumulations of echo and desire. Libraries are anything but hushed.”

Martha Cooley book The Archivist

Source: The Archivist

Books, Time

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Source: The Works Of John Adams, Second President Of The United States
Context: Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people; and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and better agents, attorneys and trustees.

People, Understanding, Nature, Knowledge

“The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it desires until it turns up.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Heart

“We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist