Desire Quotes - Page 141

You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul?

At the foundation of every life is one central desire: to make a difference that you lived.

I had no desire from an early age to be on the stage.

Andrew Jackson was the first president to claim that the desires of the public overrode Congress's constitutional prerogatives. Virtually every president since Jackson has claimed the mantle, even while lacking two ingredients of an electoral mandate: a landslide victory and a specific agenda.

I have not a desire but a need for solitude.

It was only in the late nineteenth century and then the twentieth century, with the maturation of consumer capitalism, that a shift was made toward the cultivation of unbounded desire. We must appreciate this to realize that late modern consumption, consumption as we now know it, is not fundamentally about materialism or the consumption of physical goods. Affluence and consumer-oriented capitalism have moved us well beyond the undeniable efficiencies and benefits of refrigeration and indoor plumbing.

Of course, not all desires lead to happiness. Desires can and do lead to pain and frustration.

I am moved by the desire to see and to be seen, to grow and to unveil the mysteries of life and, at the same time, by the aspiration that life will continue to reveal new mysteries and new possibilities.

As it turns out, the ecological catastrophe Kirk feared that would be the consequence of our impiety appears not to be one of radically diminished resources, but of potentially catastrophic climate change. It comes from an arrogant refusal by a modern consumerist society to accept limits on its desires. Kirk's idea of the "eternal society" evaporates before the insatiable demands of the Everlasting Now.

All of the great geniuses of the world were inspired and driven by their desire to enrich the lives of others.

I have a background in theater. At the time I read The Loved Ones script, I was playing Catherine the Great of Russia onstage. Straight after that, I played Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire and Isabella in Measure for Measure.

That is the trick of good government. To make folk desire to live in such a way that there is no need for its intervention.

The inert mind is a greater danger than the inert body, for it overlays and stifles the desire to live.

Energy and curiosity are the lifeblood of universities; the desire to find out, to uncover, to dig deeper, to puzzle out obscurities, is the spirit of the university, and it is a channelling of that unresting curiosity that holds mankind together.

Greed, the desire to incorporate, is magnified and fed back to produce the pretan realms, just as hate creates the hells.

Our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. We have all of us a longing after happiness; and surely the Creator will gratify all the natural desires he has implanted in us.

It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse.

I dare not ask a kiss; I dare not beg a smile; Lest having that or this, I might grow proud the while. No, no, the utmost share Of my desire shall be Only to kiss that air, That lately kissed thee.

My body seems a mere encumbrance to me; an imbecillic wagon, hitched to the horse of desire, which is the soul.

Sometimes we forget that our Heavenly Father desires that each of us have this joy.

Potential counts for a lot; but heart, desire, and will can take a dream from potential to possible.

Desire joy and thank God for it. Renounce it, if need be, for other's sake. That's joy beyond joy.

Wealth and wisdom are seldom combined, for the person who achieves one no longer desires the other.

I had no desire to be a stand-up comic until I decided to do it.

I don't feel like my speed or my power or my desire to play this game has diminished at all.