3,482 Quotes About Desire

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.

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

Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.

The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.

Lack creates desire. I feel becoming it. (Le manque crée le désir. Je sens le devenir)

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.

If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.