The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
William Shakespeare2 quotes
Can one desire too much of a good thing? — William Shakespeare · 1616Thy wish was father…to that thought. — William Shakespeare · 1597Aristotle1 quote
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it. The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more. — Aristotle · 350 BCBodhidharma1 quote
People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something-always, in a word, seeking. — Bodhidharma · 528 BCDon DeLillo1 quote
Longing on a large scale is what makes history. — Don DeLillo · 1997James Joyce1 quote
I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world. — James Joyce · 1915Jonathan Franzen1 quote
Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the universe; of our desires forever outnumbering our means of satisfying them. — Jonathan Franzen · 1996Marcel Proust1 quote
Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade. — Marcel Proust · 1896Mark Twain1 quote
A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs. — Mark Twain · 1897Mouse1 quote
To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human. — Mouse · 1999Plutarch1 quote
How strongly does this bear out the truth of Plato's maxim, that he who wishes to be really rich ought to lessen his desires rather than increase his property, because if a man places no bounds to his covetousness, he never will be free from want and misery. — PlutarchRobert Hass1 quote
Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances. — Robert Hass · 1979Seneca1 quote
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. — Seneca · 65Thomas Hobbes1 quote
I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651W.H. Auden1 quote
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews.
Not to be born is the best for man. — W.H. Auden · 1937Willa Cather1 quote
The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing-desire. — Willa Cather · 1915William Blake1 quote
Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs and flaming hair,
But Desire gratified
Plants fruits of life and beauty there. — William Blake · 1792