Quotes about lust

A collection of quotes on the topic of lust, love, men, god.

Quotes about lust

Ted Bundy photo
George Orwell photo
Vladimir Nabokov photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Allan Boesak photo
Socrates photo
Socrates photo
Josiah Gilbert Holland photo
Jean Baudrillard photo
Thomas Hobbes photo

“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588
Blaise Pascal photo

“Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.”

Source: Pensées

Thomas Mann photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
In Humanity's machine.”

Pt. V, st. 7
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Benjamin Tillman photo
Yeghishe Charents photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Socrates photo
Tacitus photo

“Lust of absolute power is more burning than all the passions”
cupido dominandi cunctis adfectibus flagrantior est

Book XV, 53
Annals (117)

Menno Simons photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo
Thomas Mann photo
Isaac Bashevis Singer photo
Richard Wagner photo

“From of old, amid the rage of robbery and blood-lust, it came to wise men's consciousness that the human race was suffering from a malady which necessarily kept it in progressive deterioration. Many a hint from observation of the natural man, as also dim half-legendary memories, had made them guess the primal nature of this man, and that his present state is therefore a degeneration. A mystery enwrapped Pythagoras, the preacher of vegetarianism; no philosopher since him has pondered on the essence of the world, without recurring to his teaching. Silent fellowships were founded, remote from turmoil of the world, to carry out this doctrine as a sanctification from sin and misery. Among the poorest and most distant from the world appeared the Saviour, no more to teach redemption's path by precept, but example; his own flesh and blood he gave as last and highest expiation for all the sin of outpoured blood and slaughtered flesh, and offered his disciples wine and bread for each day's meal:—"Taste such alone, in memory of me." … Perhaps the one impossibility, of getting all professors to continually observe this ordinance of the Redeemer's, and abstain entirely from animal food, may be taken for the essential cause of the early decay of the Christian religion as Christian Church. But to admit that impossibility, is as much as to confess the uncontrollable downfall of the human race itself.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Part II
Religion and Art (1880)

W.B. Yeats photo

“You think it horrible that lust and rage
Should dance attention upon my old age;
They were not such a plague when I was young;
What else have I to spur me into song?”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Spur http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1693/
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Socrates photo
Pliny the Younger photo

“The lust of lucre has so totally seized upon mankind, that their wealth seems rather to possess them, than they to possess their wealth.”
Ea invasit homines habendi cupido, ut possideri magis quam possidere videantur.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 30, 4.
Letters, Book IX

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“The lust for power, which of all human vices was found in its most concentrated form in the Roman people as a whole, first established its victory in a few powerful individuals, and then crushed the rest of an exhausted country beneath the yoke of slavery.

For when can that lust for power in arrogant hearts come to rest until, after passing from one office to another, it arrives at sovereignty? Now there would be no occasion for this continuous progress if ambition were not all-powerful; and the essential context for ambition is a people corrupted by greed and sensuality.”

<p>Ipsa libido dominandi, quae inter alia uitia generis humani meracior inerat uniuerso populo Romano, postea quam in paucis potentioribus uicit, obtritos fatigatosque ceteros etiam iugo seruitutis oppressit.</p><p>Nam quando illa quiesceret in superbissimis mentibus, donec continuatis honoribus ad potestatem regiam perueniret? Honorum porro continuandorum facultas non esset, nisi ambitio praeualeret. Minime autem praeualeret ambitio, nisi in populo auaritia luxuriaque corrupto.</p>

as translated by H. Bettenson (1972), Book 1, Chapter 31, p. 42
The City of God (early 400s)

Osamu Tezuka photo
Ephrem the Syrian photo

“O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power and idle talk, but give to me, Thy servant, a spirit of soberness, humility, patience and love.”

Ephrem the Syrian (306–373) Syriac deacon and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century

"Prayer of Ephrem" as translated in The Lenten Triodion (1978) by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, p. 69
Variant translations:
O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power and idle talk, but give to me, your servant, a spirit of soberness, humility, patience and love. O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother: for you are blessed for ever and ever. Amen. O God, cleanse me, a sinner.
As translated in Who's Holding the Umbrella (1984) by William E. Yaeger, p. 70
Context: O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, lust for power and idle talk, but give to me, Thy servant, a spirit of soberness, humility, patience and love. O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother: for blessed art Thou to the ages of ages. Amen. O God, cleanse me, a sinner.

Voltaire photo

“This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Upton Sinclair photo

“Men of unlimited means live lives of unbridled lust, and then, in their old age, they are helpless victims of their own impulses.”

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist

https://books.google.com/books?id=CbfTjcDmA6gC&pg=RA1-PA26&lpg=RA1-PA26&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false The Book of Life (1921)

A. C. Grayling photo

“Remembrance Day should therefore also be about war’s causes: ugly faiths, intolerance, lust for power and revenge, mutual hatreds prompted by historical accidents or differences of colour, custom or culture.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 47, “Remembrance” (p. 173)

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo
Julia Quinn photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Graham Greene photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Frederick Buechner photo

“Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

Robert E. Howard photo
Joseph Heller photo

“He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret”

Source: Catch-22

Seamus Heaney photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“If they substituted the word 'Lust' for 'Love' in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth.”

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

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Rebecca Solnit photo
Sylvia Day photo

“Let him lust for you until he has blue balls”

Source: Bared to You

Stephen King photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
Douglas Adams photo
Don DeLillo photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Graham Greene photo

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.”

John Webster (1578–1634) English dramatist

Act V, scene v.
Duchess of Malfi (1623)

Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Susan Sontag photo

“I have always been full of lust - as I am now - but I have always been placing conceptual obstacles in my own path.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

R. Scott Bakker photo

“Love is lust made meaningful. Hope is hunger made human.”

Ajencis, The Third Analytic of Men
Source: The Warrior Prophet (2005)

Camille Paglia photo
Aleister Crowley photo
Greg Behrendt photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Lori Foster photo
Aleister Crowley photo
Patricia Highsmith photo
Tom Robbins photo

“red hair is caused by sugar and lust.”

Source: Still Life with Woodpecker

Robert Creeley photo
Irène Némirovsky photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
Sara Shepard photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Nora Roberts photo
Anne McCaffrey photo

“Mathematics because of its nature and structure is peculiarly fitted for high school instruction [Gymnasiallehrfach]. Especially the higher mathematics, even if presented only in its elements, combines within itself all those qualities which are demanded of a secondary subject. It engages, it fructifies, it quickens, compels attention, is as circumspect as inventive, induces courage and self-confidence as well as modesty and submission to truth. It yields the essence and kernel of all things, is brief in form and overflows with its wealth of content. It discloses the depth and breadth of the law and spiritual element behind the surface of phenomena; it impels from point to point and carries within itself the incentive toward progress; it stimulates the artistic perception, good taste in judgment and execution, as well as the scientific comprehension of things. Mathematics, therefore, above all other subjects, makes the student lust after knowledge, fills him, as it were, with a longing to fathom the cause of things and to employ his own powers independently; it collects his mental forces and concentrates them on a single point and thus awakens the spirit of individual inquiry, self-confidence and the joy of doing; it fascinates because of the view-points which it offers and creates certainty and assurance, owing to the universal validity of its methods. Thus, both what he receives and what he himself contributes toward the proper conception and solution of a problem, combine to mature the student and to make him skillful, to lead him away from the surface of things and to exercise him in the perception of their essence. A student thus prepared thirsts after knowledge and is ready for the university and its sciences. Thus it appears, that higher mathematics is the best guide to philosophy and to the philosophic conception of the world (considered as a self-contained whole) and of one’s own being.”

Christian Heinrich von Dillmann (1829–1899) German educationist

Source: Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (Stuttgart, 1889), p. 40.

Glen Cook photo
William Blake photo

“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 22

John Calvin photo
Conrad Aiken photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Piet Hein photo

“The human spirit sublimates
the impulses it thwarts;
a healthy sex life mitigates
the lust for other sports.”

Piet Hein (1905–1996) Danish puzzle designer, mathematician, author, poet

Hint And Suggestion : Admonitory grook addressed to youth
Grooks

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“For what is there more hideous than avarice, more brutal than lust, more contemptible than cowardice, more base than stupidity and folly?”
Quid enim foedius auaritia, quid immanius libidine, quid contemptius timiditate, quid abiectius tarditate et stultitia dici potest?

Book I, section 51; (Translation by C.D. Yonge) http://books.google.com/books?id=AdAIAAAAQAAJ&q=%22For+what+is+there+more+hideous+than+avarice+more+brutal+than+lust+more+contemptible+than+cowardice+more+base+than+stupidity+and%22&pg=PA420#v=onepage
De Legibus (On the Laws)

Wilfred Thesiger photo