Desideratum Quotes & Sayings

Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. — H.P. Lovecraft

She never ever lost her head even when she was giving head. — Lou Reed

Mathematical Analysis is ... the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge. — Auguste Comte

Such pretensions to nicety in experiments of this nature, are truly laughable! They will be telling us some day of the WEIGHT of the MOON, even to drams, scruples and grains-nay, to the very fraction of a grain!-I wish there were infallible experiments to ascertain the quantum of brains each man possesses, and every man's integrity and candour:-This is a desideratum in science which is most of all wanted. — Robert Sutton Harrington

For action has no sense. It merely binds one to existence. All existence, however, has no sense. Evil is interpreted as that which leads to irrationalism: to the affirmation of means whose end is denied. A road to nonentity is the desideratum, hence all emotional impulses are regarded with horror. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Fragments of the natural method must be sought with the greatest care. This is the first and last desideratum among botanists.
Nature makes no jumps.
[Natura non facit saltus]
All taxa show relationships on all sides like the countries on a map of the world. — Carl Linnaeus

The desideratum of the philosophy "better to have never been" is parents being charged with manslaughter for bringing children into the world — Dean Cavanagh

Ceux qui luttent ce sont ceux qui vivent..
And down here they luttent a very great deal indeed..
But if life be the desideratum,. why grieve,. ils vivent.. — Stevie Smith

One constant is that, to achieve all the purposes of reading, the desideratum must be the ability to read different things at different - appropriate - speeds, not everything at the greatest possible speed. As Pascal observed three hundred years ago, "When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing." Since — Mortimer J. Adler

A vision of truth which does not call upon us to get out of our armchair - why, this is the desideratum of mankind. — John Jay Chapman

Have I told you that you are my every dream?"
Her eyes shimmered. Her voice went smoky with emotion. "Not recently. — Nancy Gideon

Highfalutin moral principles are impossible guides to foreign policy. At worst, they reflect hypocrisy; at best, extreme naivete. — Charles Krauthammer

Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum. — Frederick Douglass

If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. — William Makepeace Thackeray

[The] humanization of mathematical teaching, the bringing of the matter and the spirit of mathematics to bear not merely upon certain fragmentary faculties of the mind, but upon the whole mind, that this is the greatest desideratum is. I assume, beyond dispute. — Cassius Jackson Keyser

I imagine that thinking is the great desideratum of the present age; and the cause of whatever is done amiss may justly be reckoned the general neglect of education in those who need it most, the people of fashion. What can be expected where those who have the most influence have the least sense, and those who are sure to be followed set the worst examples? — George Berkeley

I love discomfort. I mean, my whole life is discomfort. One reason I can never retire is that the idea of just sitting on the beach totally comfortable is not a desideratum in my life. I like ambiguity, I like conflict, I like uncertainly. — Alan Dershowitz

He laughs and pulls out a big Ziploc bag of something dark and round. Cookies!
I lunge forward. "Are these - ?"
"Chocolate with peanut butter chips," he finishes for me.
I keep staring at his lips, but I slide open the baggie. "I love these! My mom always made these."
"I know."
"How do you know?"
"You told me once."
He sits down with me and before I can get too heart fluttery he pulls out a cookie and lifts it toward my mouth, teasing me. "Do you want it?"
I open my lips. He slides the cookie in a little bit. I chomp down. It melts on my tongue. "It is sooo good. — Carrie Jones

My derring-do allows me to dance the rigadoon around you but by the time I'm close to you I lose my desideratum. — Fiona Apple

One of them spotted the halo in Daniel's hand and gasped. "They have stolen the first relic."
"And they were working together! Angels and demons and"-narrowed eyes fell on Luce-"those who do not know their place, all working together for an impure cause. The Throne does not endorse this. You will never find the desideratum! — Lauren Kate

I shall argue that it is the capital stock from which we derive satisfaction, not from the additions to it (production) or the subtractions from it (consumption): that consumption, far from being a desideratum, is a deplorable property of the capital stock which necessitates the equally deplorable activity of production: and that the objective of economic policy should not be to maximize consumption or production, but rather to minimize it, i.e. to enable us to maintain our capital stock with as little consumption or production as possible. — Kenneth E. Boulding

Modernism has a reputation for being a forbidding phenomenon: its visual arts disconcertingly non-representational, its literary efforts devoid of the consolations of plot and character - even its films, it's argued, fall well short of that true desideratum: entertainment. — Will Self

The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society. — James Madison

The important desideratum is freedom of the market; a country or region will often best develop, depending on conditions of resources or the market, by concentrating on one or two items and then exchanging them for other items produced elsewhere. — Murray Rothbard