Quotes about wish
page 2

“When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“Why do we weep once we know that everything will be alright? We weep because the only way everything could ever be alright is in fiction. We weep because what we've seen can't be true, no matter how badly we wish it were. We weep at the truth.”

Adam Levine (1979) singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States

Source: The Instructions

Truth, Way

“I don't get high, but sometimes I wish I did. That way, when I messed up in life I would have an excuse. But right now there's no rehab for stupidity.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Life, Stupidity, Way

“The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know.”

Tove Jansson book Moominvalley in November

Source: Moominvalley in November

“Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Attributed to Orwell in State of Fear (2004) by Michael Crichton, and Picking Fights with Thunderstorms (2005) by Sheila Suess Kennedy
Disputed

“Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.

I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Boy, Time

“I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Girl

“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: The Integration of the Personality (1939), p. 285

For Parents, Change

“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”

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

Friendship, For Friend, For Bestfriend, Friendship

“You must work and do good, not be lazy and gamble, if you wish to earn happiness. Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Appearance, Happiness

“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Life

“Well, now you can see for yourself that she was delicate", said Davey triumphantly. "She's dead. It killed her. Doesn't that show you? I do wish I could make you Radletts understand that there is no such thing as imaginary illness. Nobody who is quite well could possibly be bothered to do all the things that I, for instance, am obliged to, in order to keep my wretched frame on its feet.”

Nancy Mitford book Love in a Cold Climate

Source: Love in a Cold Climate

Understanding, Dead

“If you look hard and long, you can find us. If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us that you wish.”

Tamora Pierce book Wild Magic

Source: Wild Magic

“May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

God, Star

“Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of 'free-will' … doubtless it gives the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace”

Martin Luther book On the Bondage of the Will

Source: On the Bondage of the Will (1525), p. 217

Men, God, Health, Age

“If we wish to express our ideas in terms of the concepts synthetic and analytic, we would have to point out that these concepts are applicable only to sentences that can be either true of false, and not to definitions. The mathematical axioms are therefore neither synthetic nor analytic, but definitions. …Hence the question of whether axioms are a priori becomes pointless since they are arbitrary.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Mathematics, Idea, Question, Falseness

“When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West. It is over for communism, and I want to stress that.”

Pol Pot (1925–1998) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea

September 2018
Nate Thayer interview (1997)

Communication

“I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue. You'll find that is true, Rose, when you know the world better.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

People, World, Fear, Feeling

“I wish I could not write.”
Vellem nescire literas.

Nero (37–68) Emperor of Ancient Rome, 5th and last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty

Variant translation: I wish I were illiterate.
Quoted in " De Clementia" - Chapter 1, Book 2 by Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

“It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.”

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

Symposium 17–19 [= 2.10]
Xenophon

Animals, Horse

“If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844) Variant: If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

Forgetting

“How great a joy I feel in my heart. That a day so pleasant, so dear and glorious begins, a day that I greet with the wish. That long years may pass in happiness. In health and vigour, peacefully, successfully. May the gift of heaven fall richly upon you”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

As quoted in his letter to his father, dated December 6th 1817[citation needed]

Health, Feeling, Heart, Joy

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Men, God, War, Age

“The search for truth is never over and the survival of truth is never assured. We have to choose - do we stand with those who wish to suppress the truth or stand with those who seek it.”

Morgan Freeman (1937) American actor, film director, and narrator

Source: [Jarvey, Natalie, December 4, 2017, Morgan Freeman, Kerry Washington Celebrate "Oscars of Science'" at Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/morgan-freeman-kerry-washington-celebrate-oscars-science-at-breakthrough-prize-ceremony-1064160, The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles, December 4, 2017]

Truth, Search

“I am a man of great age and my wish is to pray two rak'ahs in the al-Aqsa mosque before I die, can I get my wish?”

Faisal of Saudi Arabia (1906–1975) King of Saudi Arabia

quora.com https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-stance-on-the-Arab-Israeli-conflict

Age

“Moralities and religions are the principal means by which one can make whatever one wishes out of man, provided one possesses a superfluity of creative forces and can assert one's will over long periods of time — in the form of legislation and customs.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Will to Power

Sec. 144 (Notebook N VII 1. April - June 1885, KGW VII, 3.198, KSA 11.478)
The Will to Power (1888)

Religion, Time

“You will have seen that my brother died suddenly in Marseilles. I inherit from him a title, but not a penny of money, as he was bankrupt. A title is a great nuisance to me, and I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it employed in connection with any of my literary work. There is, so far as I know, only one method of getting rid of it, which is to be attainted of high treason, and this would involve my head being cut off on Tower Hill. This method seems to me perhaps somewhat extreme…”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to W. W. Norton, 11 March, 1931
1930s

Money, Loss

“I absolutely insist on protecting private property. It is natural and salutary that the individual should be inspired by the wish to devote a part of the income from his work to building up and expanding a family estate. Suppose the estate consists of a factory. I regard it as axiomatic, in the ordinary way, that this factory will be better run by one of the members of the family that it would be by a State functionary—providing, of course, that the family remains healthy. In this sense, we must encourage private initiative.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

A private statement made on March 24, 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

Family, Way, Nature, Sense

“When you wish to see whether the general effect of your picture corresponds with that of the object represented after nature, take a mirror and set it so that it reflects the actual thing, and then compare the reflection with your picture, and consider carefully whether the subject of the two images is in conformity with both, studying especially the mirror. The mirror ought to be taken as a guide… you see the picture made upon one plane showing things which appear in relief, and the mirror upon one plane does the same. The picture is on one single surface, and the mirror is the same. …if you but know well how to compose your picture it will also seem a natural thing seen in a great mirror.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Nature, Study, Appearance

“This contradiction lies here: they wish God, and they wish humanity. They persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other. They say in a single breath: "God and the liberty of man," "God and the dignity, justice, equality, fraternity, prosperity of men" — regardless of the fatal logic by virtue of which, if God exists, all these things are condemned to non-existence. For, if God is, he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a master exists, man is a slave; now, if he is a slave, neither justice, nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him. In vain, flying in the face of good sense and all the teachings of history, do they represent their God as animated by the tenderest love of human liberty: a master, whoever he may be and however liberal he may desire to show himself, remains none the less always a master. His existence necessarily implies the slavery of all that is beneath him. Therefore, if God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty — by ceasing to exist.”

Mikhail Bakunin book God and the State

God and the State (1871; publ. 1882)

Love, Men, God, Justice

“The aims of social science with respect to human organizations are like those of any other science with respect to the events and phenomena of its domain. Social scientists wish to understand human organizations, to describe what is essential in their form, aspects, and functions.”

Daniel Katz (1903–1998) American psychologist

18
The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966)

Understanding, Science

“I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 381
The Gay Science (1882)

“We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.”

Menander (-342–-291 BC) Athenian playwright of New Comedy

Lady of Andros, fragment 50.

Inspirational, Life

“I wish that every young man when he begins to write music would not concern himself with being a melodist, a harmonist, a realist, an idealist or a futurist or any other such devilish pedantic things. Melody and harmony should be simply tools in the hands of the artist, with which he creates music; and if a day comes when people stop talking about the German school, the Italian school, the past, the future, etc., etc., then art will perhaps come into its own.”

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Italian composer

Io…vorrei che il giovane quando si mette a scrivere, non pensasse mai ad essere né melodista, né realista, né idealista, né avvenirista, né tutti i diavoli che si portino queste pedanterie. La melodia e l’armonia non devono essere che mezzi nella mano dell'artista per fare della Musica, e se verrà un giorno in cui non si parlerà più né di melodia né di armonia né di scuole tedesche, italiane, né di passato né di avvenire ecc. ecc. ecc. allora forse comincierà il regno dell'arte.
Letter to Opprandino Arrivabene, July 14, 1875, cited from Julian Budden Le opere di Verdi (Torino: E.D.T., 1986) vol. 2, p. 60; translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997) p. 126

People, School, Art, Music

“It is true I wished to escape; and so I wish still; is not this lawful for all prisoners?”

Joan of Arc (1412–1431) French folk heroine and Roman Catholic saint

First public examination (21 February 1431)
Trial records (1431)

Law

“I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark almost blue color, and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.””

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Love, Death, War, People

“In Matthew 12:23 Christ says: “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad and its fruit bad,” as if to say: “Let the one who wishes to have good fruit begin by planting a good tree.” Therefore, let the person who wishes to do good works being not with the works but with the believing, for this alone makes a person good.”

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

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 76

Tree, Christ, Personality

“We wish, in a word, equality — equality in fact as a corollary, or rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs; that is what we wish sincerely and energetically.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

As quoted in The Old Order and the New (1890) by J. Morris Davidson

Sincerity

“If I knew that it was fated for me to be sick, I would even wish for it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would volunteer to get muddy.”

Chrysippus (-281–-208 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted by Epictetus, Discourses, ii. 6. 10.

Fate, Intelligence

“One of the first signs of the beginnings of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one will only in time come to hate.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

13
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)

Life, Hate, Understanding, Appearance

“Now one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.”

Erwin Chargaff (1905–2002) Ukrinian-born biochemist who emigrated to the United States

Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature, Paul & Co Pub Consortium, June, 1978.

Truth, World, Search, Understanding

“It was only after the Soviet régime became unmistakably totalitarian that English intellectuals, in large numbers, began to show an interest in it. Burnham, although the English russophile intelligentsia would repudiate him, is really voicing their secret wish: the wish to destroy the old, equalitarian version of Socialism and usher in a hierarchical society where the intellectual can at last get his hands on the whip.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Second Thoughts on James Burnham," Polemic (summer 1946)

Secret

“For we did not and do not wish the Temple to be placed in any servitude except that which is fitting.”

Jacques de Molay (1243–1314) Grand Master of the Knights Templar

Quar nous navons volu ne volons le Temple mettre en aucune servitute se non tant come il hy affiert.
In one of his memoranda to Pope Clement V from the summer of 1306.

“He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star.
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Teardrops on My Guitar, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Taylor Swift (2006)

Cars, Star, Singing

“I was born poor, I have lived poor, I wish to die poor.”

Pope Pius X (1835–1914) Catholic Pope and saint

His last will, as quoted in an obituary in The Maine Catholic Historical Magazine (1914) Volumes 3-6, p. 17

“I wish I had been born a bird instead," he said.
"I wish we had all been born birds instead.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

Bird

“Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating within us.”

Sigmund Freud book Totem and Taboo

Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics (1913)
1910s

“Before, he had fought against the money code, and yet he had clung to his wretched remnant of decency. But now it was precisely from decency that he wanted to escape. He wanted to go down, deep down, into some world where decency no longer mattered; to cut the strings of his self-respect, to submerge himself—to sink, as Rosemary had said. It was all bound up in his mind with the thought of being under ground. He liked to think of the lost people, the under-ground people: tramps, beggars, criminals, prostitutes. It is a good world that they inhabit, down there in their frowzy kips and spikes. He liked to think that beneath the world of money there is that great sluttish underworld where failure and success have no meaning; a sort of kingdom of ghosts where all are equal. That was where he wished to be, down in the ghost-kingdom, below ambition. It comforted him somehow to think of the smoke-dim slums of South London sprawling on and on, a huge graceless wilderness where you could lose yourself forever.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 10

Money, People, World, Failure

“I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

On why he delayed the Leopard OS in favor of developing the iPhone rather than hiring more developers, at the annual Apple stockholder's meeting (10 May 2007) as quoted in "Apple's Jobs brushes aside backdating concerns" at c|net News (10 May 2007) http://archive.is/20130628220833/http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6182965.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news Variant: I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check … if so, then Microsoft would have great products. As quoted in "Apple iPhone: more secrets revealed" (11 May 2007) http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/mac/news/apple-iphone-jobs-spills-more-secrets?articleid=1431998781 2005-09 Context: I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If that was the case, Microsoft would have great products.

“The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of the diseased eye. And the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

X, 35
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Context: The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of the diseased eye. And the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be with respect to all food just as the mill with respect to all things which it is formed to grind. And accordingly the healthy understanding ought to be prepared for everything which happens; but that which says, Let my dear children live, and let all men praise whatever I may do, is an eye which seeks for green things, or teeth which seek for soft things.

Disease

“The happiest days of my life were from sixteen to twenty, during the semestres, when I used to go about, as I have told you I should wish to do, from one restaurateur to another, living moderately, and having a lodging for which I paid three louis a month. They were the happiest days of my life. I was always so much occupied, that I may say I never was truly happy upon the throne.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Barry Edward O'Meara, in Napoleon in Exile : or, A Voice from St. Helena (1822), Vol. II, p. 155
About
Context: "What do you think," said he, "of all things in the world would give me the greatest pleasure?" I was on the point of replying, removal from St. Helena, when he said, "To be able to go about incognito in London and other parts of England, to the restaurateurs, with a friend, to dine in public at the expense of half a guinea or a guinea, and listen to the conversation of the company; to go through them all, changing almost daily, and in this manner, with my own ears, to hear the people express their sentiments, in their unguarded moments, freely and without restraint; to hear their real opinion of myself, and of the surprising occurrences of the last twenty years." I observed, that he would hear much evil and much good of himself. "Oh, as to the evil," replied he, "I care not about that. I am well used to it. Besides, I know that the public opinion will be changed. The nation will be just as much disgusted at the libels published against me, as they formerly were greedy in reading and believing them. This," added he, "and the education of my son, would form my greatest pleasure. It was my intention to have done this, had I reached America. The happiest days of my life were from sixteen to twenty, during the semestres, when I used to go about, as I have told you I should wish to do, from one restaurateur to another, living moderately, and having a lodging for which I paid three louis a month. They were the happiest days of my life. I was always so much occupied, that I may say I never was truly happy upon the throne."

Life, Happiness

“Conan represented the ability to escape briefly from black reality that Howard wished he could emulate.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

About
Context: "Howard takes great care to develop mood and atmosphere in his best stories, and in so doing makes the reader feel the dark, desperate undercurrent of his character's schemes and struggles. It is in this that I feel closest to Howard, and it is something that his conscious imitators have never captured. The disparity of writing styles aside, the mood immediately sets pastiche-Howard apart from the real article. Pseudo-Conan is out having just the best time, 'cause he's the biggest, toughest, mightiest-thewed barbarian on the block, and he's gonna have a swell time of brawling and chopping monsters and rescuing princesses and offing wizards and drinking and brawling and … and... etc... etc.... But in Howard's fiction the underlying black mood of pessimism is always there, and even Conan, who enjoys a binge or a good fight, is not having a good time of it at all. This is particularly true of Solomon Kane and King Kull-driven men whom not even a desperate battle can exorcise their black mood, while Conan at times can find brief surcease in excesses of pleasure or violence. I think Solomon Kane and King Kull were closer to Howard's true mood, while Conan represented the ability to escape briefly from black reality that Howard wished he could emulate. He failed. Of all Howard's characters I most prefer King Kull, and it is Kull who is closest to my own Kane..." ~ Karl Edward Wagner, Midnight Sun, "The Once and Future Kane", 2007, (First published in REH: Lone Star Fictioneer #1, Spring 1975)

Reality

“Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.”

Sophocles Electra

Electra, 1007.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Death, Evil

“What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.”

Attar of Nishapur (1145–1230) Persian Sufi poet

"Looking For Your Own Face" as translated by Coleman Barks in The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia
Context: Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

Travel, Lovers

“36. Do you wish to pray? Renounce all things. You then will become heir to all.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

Chapters on Prayer

“I do not ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could wish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their worthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

The Superstition of Divorce (1920)
Context: I do not ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could wish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their worthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society. But if it could be shown, as I think it can, that a long historical view and a patient political experience can at last accumulate solid scientific evidence of the vital need of such a vow, then I can conceive no more tremendous tribute than this, to any faith, which made a flaming affirmation from the darkest beginnings, of what the latest enlightenment can only slowly discover in the end.

“We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Inaugural Address (1905)
Context: While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Peace, Justice, Thinking

“Dante has not deigned to take his inspiration from any other. He has wished to be himself, himself alone; in a word, to create.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
Context: Dante has not deigned to take his inspiration from any other. He has wished to be himself, himself alone; in a word, to create. He has occupied a vast space, and has filled it with the superiority of a sublime mind. He is diverse, strong, and gracious. He has imagination, warmth, and enthusiasm. He makes his reader tremble, shed tears, feel the thrill of honor in a way that is the height of art. Severe and menacing, he has terrible imprecations for crime, scourgings for vice, sorrow for misfortune. As a citizen, affected by the laws of the republic, he thunders against its oppressors, but he is always ready to excuse his native city, Florence is ever to him his sweet, beloved country, dear to his heart. I am envious for my dear France, that she has never produced a rival to Dante; that this Colossus has not had his equal among us. No, there is no reputation which can be compared to his.

“I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.
Quoted in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey, by Andrew Mango; "In a book published in 1928, Grace Ellison quotes [Atatürk], presumably in 1926-27", Grace Ellison Turkey Today (London: Hutchinson, 1928)

Religion, Time, Sea

“I am not ashamed or afraid to say that I wish more sympathy had been shown on both sides towards the Chartists. … I am not ashamed to say that I sympathise with millions of my fellow-subjects.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech in the House of Commons (28 January 1840), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 485
1840s

“I don't have an iota of interest in the historical Muhammad Tughlaq. I have no interest as to whether he was good or evil, whether he was pro or anti-Hindu. I wished to write an entertaining play, and in the endeavor, wanted to choose a fairly complex character.”

Girish Raghunath Karnad (1938–2019) Indian playwright

Karnad in a reply to S.L. Bhyrappa quoted in Sandeep Balakrishna, Tipu Sultan - The Tyrant of Mysore, p.12

Evil

“Comrades, I took the red tram of socialism to the stop called Independence, and that's where I got off. You may keep on to the final stop if you wish, but from now on let's address each other 'Mister'”

Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) Polish politician and Prime Minister

rather than continue using the socialist term of address, 'Comrade'

[Józef Piłsudski (1867 - 1935), Poland.gov, http://poland.gov.pl/Jozef, pilsudski,(1867-1935),1972.html, April 23, 2006, Translation of quote from the Government of Poland's website.]

“God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the place where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly "our Father's business."”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves, or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy ourselves.

P. 123
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Business, God

“Today it may seem hard that we cannot mark this special anniversary as we would wish. Instead we remember from our homes and our doorsteps. But our streets are not empty; they are filled with the love and the care that we have for each other. And when I look at our country today, and see what we are willing to do to protect and support one another, I say with pride that we are still a nation those brave soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognise and admire.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Address to the UK on the 75th anniversary of VE Day, which occurred during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, 08/05/2020 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-queen-ve-day-speech-read-full-a9506226.html.

Home, Country, Support, Love

“Successful people who wish to maintain their successes must make the decision to do so.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Success, Making love, People, Decision

“Be as you wish to seem.”

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

“Anybody who wishes to go beyond the free-will of another person is already practising narcissistic characteristics.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Personality

“You must be ready to sacrifice your health if you wish to gain wealth. That is simply an unavoidable law of nature.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Law, Wealth, Health, Nature

“Pure mathematics is useless to ordinary people, but useful to those who wish to understand Absolute Truth, God or Infinity. Applied maths is useful in our daily life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, Understanding, People, Truth

“It is not enough to just think about the changes one would wish to see around oneself, when putting a positive and compassionate thought into action could make all the difference in the world.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Thinking, World, Change

“People will wish you to be good. And when you are good.
They will fool you. Experienced.”

Md Mim Akhtar

People, Fools

“After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second glass you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Said about Absinthe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe. Quoted in “Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde: With Reminiscences of the Author" by Ada Leverson (London: Duckworth, 1930)

World

“You look up when you wish to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“It's a kindness that the mind can go where it wishes.”

Ovid (-43–17 BC) Roman poet

Source: The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters

“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, -- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost… He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American…”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: Souls of Black Folk & Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-1945 & Movements of the New Left 1950-1975

History

“In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.”

Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States

Depressing, Love, People, Silence

“Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding - and He has a sense of humor.”

Jean Webster (1876–1916) American novelist

God, Imagination, Forgiveness, Understanding

“That is how you know you've left childhood behind-when you wish for time to go backward.”

Alice Hoffman book Here on Earth

Source: Here on Earth

Time, Childhood

“Philosophy is properly Home-sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Philosophie ist eigentlich Heimweh - Trieb überall zu Hause zu sein.
Novalis (1829)
Variant: Philosophy is really nostalgia, the desire to be at home.

Home

“If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

The earliest appearance of this proverb yet located is in Eliza Cook's Journal Vol. 11, (1854), p. 128, and the earliest attribution to Addison yet found is in Public Ledger Almanac (1887), p. 20.
Disputed
Source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_Era/XD8DAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=addison%20%22hope%20your%20guardian%20genius%22&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover&bsq=addison%20%22hope%20your%20guardian%20genius%22 Many Thoughts of Many Minds

Life, Hope, Success, Perseverance

“Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

Love

“I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Life

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

23 February 1944 http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~param/quotes/annefrank.html (1942 - 1944) Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

God, People, Beauty, Feeling

“He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Leadership

“Oh, I love hugging. I wish I was an octopus, so I could hug 10 people at a time!”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Love, People, Time

“Sandry: "There has to be something we can do."
Lark: "We're mages. We do what we can, but some problems are too big to fix."
Sandry: "Then I wish I weren't a mage. What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people.”

Tamora Pierce book Daja's Book

Source: Daja's Book

People, Problem, Help

“The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing
and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true,
the words have not been rightly set;
only there is the agony
of wishing in my heart…”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Singing, Time, Heart

“What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?—I wish I knew… Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can…”

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cats, Victory

“If you wish to be happy, Eragon, Think not of what is to come nor of that which you have no control over but rather of the now and that which you are able to change”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

Thinking, Change, Happiness

“You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia.”

Irvine Welsh book Filth

Source: Filth

World, Thinking

“Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly

Thinking

“And if wishes were pies, I`d weigh more than I do.
Sir Myles of Barony Olau”

Tamora Pierce Squire

Source: Squire

“Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.”

Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas

Appearance

“Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols

Letter to Elisabeth Nietzsche, Bonn, 1865-06-11. Quoted in Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (opening epigram).
Variant: Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.
Source: Twilight of the Idols

Men, Pleasure, Truth, Peace