Quotes about feeling

Philosophy Quotes About Desire

Desire drives action and error alike. Philosophers ask which desires are trainable, which are endless, and how appetite relates to freedom, virtue, and a livable life.

26 quotations on desire

  1. Love is the desire for the perpetual possession of the good.
  2. It is not things that disturb people, but their judgments about things.
  3. If you wish to be loved, love.
  4. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know.
  5. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.
  6. Do not seek for things to happen as you wish, but wish for things to happen as they do, and you will flow well.
  7. Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance.
  8. Wealth does not take away need — it kindles new wants.
  9. The Master said: What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
  10. Heaven moves with vigor; the gentleman accordingly strengthens himself without cease.
  11. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
  12. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.
  13. From the very fountain of delights rises something bitter that chokes among the flowers themselves.
  14. Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another.
  15. Man is a useless passion.
  16. Before joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure are issued, that is called the Mean; when issued and all hit due measure, that is called Harmony.
  17. To extend knowledge lies in investigating things: if one wishes to extend one's knowledge, one must approach things and exhaust their principle.
  18. The Master said: The craftsman who wishes to do his work well must first sharpen his tools.
  19. All human beings by nature desire to know.
  20. I shall endeavor not to laugh at human actions, nor to weep over them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
  21. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.
  22. Those who wish to cultivate themselves first rectify the mind; those who wish to rectify the mind first make the intention sincere.
  23. The cry of the flesh is not to be hungry, not to be thirsty, not to be cold.
  24. to change my desires rather than the order of the world
  25. Not to laugh at, lament, or detest human actions, but to understand them.
  26. Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely.

More philosophy quotes about feeling

Also see famous quotes, themes, and the full archive.