He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.

Desires are central to the soul's unfolding and should not be dismissed before giving them careful attention.

People are distracted by objects of desire, and afterwards repent of the lust they've indulged, because they have indulged with a phantom and are left even farther from Reality than before. Your desire for the illusory is a wing, by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality. When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off; you become lame and that fantasy flees. Preserve the wing and don't indulge such lust, so that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise. People fancy they are enjoying themselves, but they are really tearing out their wings for the sake of an illusion.

If we go down into ourselves we find that we possess exactly what we desire.

Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.

If men could regard the events of their lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment.

Desire is the source of our most noble aspirations and our deepest sorrows. The pleasure and the pain go together; indeed, they emanate from the same region in our hearts. We cannot live without the yearning, and yet the yearning sets us up for disappointment--sometimes deep and devastating disappointment.

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.

Desire is what leads you through life until the time comes when you desire a higher life. So do not be ashamed that you want so much, yet at the same time do not fool yourself into thinking that what you want today will be enough tomorrow.

Desire is insatiable not because the goods of the world are too few, too uniform, or too bland. Desire burns through the goods of the world, even though these goods are not false or intrinsically unsatisfactory.... Desire shatters the economy of things; it disputes the tyranny of objects. IT longs for the great emptiness, which is beauty and love without limitation.

Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.

I can tell you at any rate how to get what you want. You've just got to keep a thing in view and go for it and never let your eye wander to right or left or up or down. And looking back is fatal--the truest thing in Scripture is about Lot's wife.

All movement, of every creature, comes from the desire after something better.

When it comes to desiring, we are all experts. If there were an Olympics of desiring, we would all make the team.

Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

The strongest of all psychic forces in the world is unsatisfied desire.

We cannot be free of nagging desires through suppression. This is like trying to keep a rubber boat beneath the water. But we remove compulsive desires altogether by understanding their nature.

It would be helpful if the universe would give us one big clue, or a giant compass, if you will, pointing to the direction we should be taking. In fact, the compass is there. To find it, you need only look inside yourself to discover your soul's purest desire, its dream for your life.

Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.

It is the thing that is most remote from the world in which we ourselves live that attracts us most. We are under the spell of what is distant from us. It is not our nature to desire passionately what is near at hand.

Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.

And desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.

When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate consciousness of living. It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time, but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and hints in our dreams, our hopes, our unguarded moments.

Desire is this absurdity that holds open the infinity of possibility. Ever optimistic, ever resourceful, desire tells us what it sees as it speeds ahead on its divine wings. What we cannot see, desire describes, and then it goads us to travel on until we have given birth to Joy.

When I can no more stir my soul to move,

And life is but the ashes of a fire;

When I can but remember that my heart

Once used to live and love, long and aspire--

Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;

Be thou the calling, before all answering love,

And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.

Back to Desire Quotes