Desire To Know Quotes & Sayings

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast, or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing the time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here. — Paulo Coelho

Perhaps you don't desire poetry as much as you would like to have my torchy knowledge of your possible futures, but I dare say poetry will do you far more good. For knowing the future only makes you timid and complacent by turns, while poetry can shape you into the kind of souls who can face any future with boldness and wisdom and nobility, so that you need not know the future at all, so that any future will be an opportunity for greatness, if you have greatness in you. — Orson Scott Card

Make your purpose brilliant. Keep it clear. Seek to energize it with positives. Do not lumber up your plan. Centralize it. Modify it. Create it as a necessity. Form into it the indispensable. Then embody yourself into it. See that nothing about you defeats, or neutralizes attraction. Have a burning interest in your proposition. Look for fulfillment. Anticipate success. Make the world feel that you know you are right. Stop asking folks if they think you will succeed. Of course they do not, because they have not. Hold your mind relaxed in Silence. Make your desire active. Set your wishes in motion. Confidence attracts confidence. Positives attract positives. Bring out your latent forces, they only need arousing. THINK AND ACT. — Delmer Eugene Croft

Nervousness is caused by wanting two opposing things at the same time, one consciously and the other subconsciously. The battle is resolved when you make the subconscious desire conscious. On the other hand, if you know what you are, there will be no conflicts. You can do that through seeking. It is not necessary to understand the negative. It is far better to be positive. Be Your Self. — Lester Levenson

Whoa," Becky said, because the baby kicked her hard in the bladder.

Felix startled, backing up and nearly falling over a chair.

"Sorry, I was whoa-ing because right when you came in, the baby kicked, not because you're Felix Callahan. Oh, you know what it reminded me of ? When Elisabeth's baby kicks just as Mary greets her? Isn't that funny? As if I had some spiritual sign when I saw you."

Annette smiled, her eyebrows raised. Felix glared handsomely. Becky stamped down a desire to squirm.

"No, it's not terribly funny," Felix said, "particularly as I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Elisabeth, wife of Zacharias, cousin to Mary, mother of Jesus? No? Nothing?"

Felix looked at her with a careful lack of amusement.

"Oh, maybe you don't have the Bible in England. See, there's this guy named Jesus and his mother is named Mary, and well, it's a really interesting read if you don't mind parables. — Shannon Hale

-and then what happened?- I asked him, but I had no desire to know. Whatever it was, it has to be ugly. — Michael F. Moore

To see you naked is to remember the Earth,
the smooth Earth, clean of horses,
the Earth without reeds, pure form,
closed to the future, confine of silver.
To see you naked is to understand the desire
of rain that looks for the delicate waist,
or the fever of the broad-faced sea
that cannot find the light of its cheek.
Blood will ring through the bedrooms
and will come with flaming swords,
but you will not know the hiding places
of the violet or the heart of the toad.
Your womb is a struggle of roots.
Your lips are a dawn without contour.
Under the lukewarm roses of the bed
the dead men moan, awaiting their return. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I look away from his eyes. Since I've met you, Brennus, my life has not been mine, I say with more honesty than I like to admit to myself. Time with you is visceral ... white-knuckle moments that make me know that I'm alive. I think I have become addicted to the rush of fear and desire you create ... the uncertainty that I was once forced to endure has now become a need, like those pills that people keep in their medicine cabinets. — Amy A. Bartol

The truth is
we are always highly motivated when something means a great deal to us. If I fell into a deep lake and I didn't know how to swim, I would become highly motivated in an instant. Climbing from the lake would mean more to me than anything else in the world. My effort would be no less than astounding and I would suddenly become one of the most excited and enthusiastic persons imaginable. — Steve Goodier

I can read every word of your soul, become deeply engrossed in the study of it until I've comprehended every nuance and detail. But then when I'm done, I'll discard it as easily as if it were a newspaper, shaking my head at how the ink has stained my fingers gray. My desire to know every layer of you isn't feigned, but interest isn't love, and I make no promises of forever. Perhaps I do every so often, but you have no business believing me. — M.E. Thomas

I was left an orphan while I was still a child, and we were very poor. Sometimes I would stand for hours on end in ecstasy outside a baker's shop, gazing with burning desire at the cakes. I would say to myself, 'These are not for me. I shall never be able to eat anything like this.' The Bible brings back these memories. Once again I can see wonderful things, but I know that they are not for me, because I am a Jew. I know that there are Jews who have converted to Christianity in order to marry Romanian girls or to escape anti-Semitic persecution. But I have not yet met a Jew who believes in Jesus. — Richard Wurmbrand

In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. — Bertrand Russell

She fluttered her fan. "And do you know what they say of women of a certain age, what they want above all?"
Desire simmered in him at her not quite smile. "Do tell."
"To be rid of you, Hastings. So that they don't have to waste what remains of their precious few years suffering your lecherous looks."
"If I stopped looking at you lecherously, you'd miss it."
"Why don't we test that hypothesis? You stop and I'll tell you after ten years or so whether I miss it."
...
He rose and bowed slightly. "You wouldn't last two weeks, Miss Fitzhugh. — Sherry Thomas

There is a fine line between humility and humiliation, and when Augustine's critics, both loyal and disloyal, fault him for morbid self-criticism, they generally mean to imply that he has crossed the line. You can have a relationship with another person only if you know something of humility; otherwise your ego gets in the way. If, however, you are humiliated instead of humbled, there is no 'you' to enter into a relationship. Massilians and Pelagians had differing understandings of when humility before God became too much of a good thing, but they had common cause in not liking Augustine's scruples about the human will to relate to God. If everything about the soul's relationship to God is God's doing, including the very desire to be in relation, where exactly does the soul surface in its redemption? The Word seems to have become a monologue. — James Wetzel

To know and be known: that was the final desire, the heart of love. — Justin Cronin

The soul that has come to know God fully no longer desires anything else, nor does it attach itself to anything on the earth; and if you put before it a kingdom, it would not desire it, for the love of God gives such sweetness and joy to the soul that even the life of a king can no longer give it any sweetness. — Silouan The Athonite

Suddenly, I get this giddy desire to shock these guys a little. I continue, "These baboons really are our relatives. In fact, this baboon is my cousin." And with that I lean over and give Daniel a loud messy kiss on his big ol' nose. I get more of a response than I bargained for. The Masai freak and suddenly, they are waving their spears real close to my face, like they mean it. One is yelling, "He is not your cousin, he is not your cousin! A baboon cannot even cook ugali!" (Ugali is the ubiquitous and repulsive maize meal that everyone eats here. I almost respond that I don't really know how to cook the stuff either, but decide to show some prudence at last.) "He is not your cousin! — Robert M. Sapolsky

The best books ...
The best books of men are soon exhausted
they are cisterns, and not springing fountains.
You enjoy them very much at the first acquaintance,
and you think you could hear them a hundred times over-
but you could not- you soon find them wearisome.
Very speedily a man eats too much honey:
even children at length are cloyed with sweets.
All human books grow stale after a time-
but with the Word of God the desire to study it increases,
while the more you know of it the less you think you know.
The Book grows upon you: as you dive into its depths
you have a fuller perception of the infinity which remains
to be explored. You are still sighing to enjoy more of that
which it is your bliss to taste. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I know few Christians so convinced of the splendor of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions ... Nor has the Church's ardent "desire to depart, and be with Christ," ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure. — John Ruskin

People make the mistake of assuming far too many things about armies,' Lefevre told me one evening. 'They assume, for a start, that generals know what they are doing and know what is going on. They assume that orders pass down from top to bottom in a smooth and regulated fashion. And above all they assume that wars start only when people decide to start them.' 'You are going to tell me that is not the case?' 'Wars begin when they are ready, when humanity needs a bloodletting. Kings and politicians and generals have little say in it. You can feel it in the air when one is brewing. There is a tension and nervousness on the face of the least soldier. They can smell it coming in a way politicians cannot. The desire to hurt and destroy spreads over a region and over the troops. And then the generals can only hope to have the vaguest notion of what they are doing. — Iain Pears

You see, I know you, Violet. You've tormented me in my dreams with your body too many times to count. Now you're here in the flesh, with your ripe curves and innocent eyes, an angel hidden in the body of a temptress. — Rose Wynters

Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another. The opposite of boredom, in a word, is not pleasure, but excitement. — Bertrand Russell

Real peace comes only when you stop chasing it. When you relax your driving desire for comfort, real fulfillment arises. When you drop your hectic pursuit of gratification, the real beauty of life comes out. When you seek to know the reality without illusion, complete with all its pain and danger, that is when real freedfom and security are yours. — Henepola Gunaratana

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement. — Abraham H. Maslow

While they were preparing the hemlock, Socrates was learning how to play a new tune on the flute. "What will be the use of that?" he was asked. "To know this tune before dying." If I dare repeat this reply long since trivialized by the handbooks, it is because it seems to me the sole serious justification of any desire to know, whether exercised on the brink of death or at any other moment of existence. — Emil Cioran

Humility is a fertile soil where spirituality grows and produces the fruit of inspiration to know what to do. It gives access to divine power to accomplish what must be done. An individual motivated by a desire for praise or recognition will not qualify to be taught by the Spirit. An individual who is arrogant or who lets his or her emotions influence decisions will not be powerfully led by the Spirit. — Richard G. Scott

You know how it is to want something. Desire builds like a little house in your head and it sits there, half-constructed in your mind. Women who want children are this way. Artists are this way about pictures. It doesn't go away. You may forget for a few months but then it's back, the unfinished pieces of what you want. — Deb Olin Unferth

People don't like to talk about alcohol. They don't like to think about it, except in the most superficial of ways. They don't like to examine the damage it does and I don't blame them. I don't like it either. I know that desire for denial with every bone in my body: clavicle, sternum, femur and phalanx. — Olivia Laing

The acquisition of knowledge always involves the revelation of ignorance - almost is the revelation of ignorance. Our knowledge of the world instructs us first of all that the world is greater than our knowledge of it. To those who rejoice in the abundance and intricacy in Creation, this is a source of joy, as it is to those who rejoice in freedom ...
To those would-be solvers of "the human problem," who hope for knowledge equal to (capable of controlling) the world, it is a source of unremitting defeat and bewilderment. The evidence is overwhelming that knowledge does not solve "the human problem." Indeed, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests - with Genesis - that knowledge is the problem. Or perhaps we should say instead that all our problems tend to gather under two questions about knowledge: Having the ability and desire to know, how and what should we learn? And, having learned, how and for what should we use what we know? (pg. 183, People, Land, and Community) — Wendell Berry

Without will there is no concept and no world. Before us, certainly, nothing remains. But what resists this transition into annihilation, our nature, is only that same wish to live
Wille zum Leben
which forms ourselves as well as our world. That we are so afraid of annihilation or, what is the same thing, that we so wish to live, merely means that we are ourselves nothing else but this desire to live, and know nothing but it. And so what remains after the complete annihilation of the will, for us who are so full of the will, is, of course, nothing; but on the other hand, for those in whom the will has turned and renounced itself, this so real world of ours with all its suns and milky way is nothing. — Arthur Schopenhauer

He lashed the belt against my ass again, and I was starting to feel like I was some supernatural being that was more than he was. He was just human, but I felt like something from heaven, an angel from the stars, that had come down to grace him with my presence.

How beautiful lust is, when it makes you feel this way. Have you felt this yourself, do you know what I mean? — Fiona Thrust

The young among us are, as a general thing, allied to the world. But few maintain a special warfare against the internal foe. But few have an earnest, anxious desire to know and do the will of God. — Ellen G. White

In my small way, I preserved and catalogued, and dipped into the vast ocean of learning that awaited, knowing all the time that the life of one man was insufficient for even the smallest part of the wonders that lay within. It is cruel that we are granted the desire to know, but denied the time to do so properly. We all die frustrated; it is the greatest lesson we have to learn. — Iain Pears

(If God wills it) ... the number of angels ... may be infinite ... Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Once upon a time, atoms did not exist. There was no Dalton, no Rutherford. Albert Einstein was nothing more than a theorist, but you only have to look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to know that things invisible exist and bear great power. The power to destroy. Or the power to create ... Atoms and angels, reason and faith ... One without the other is less than half as strong and can be a danger to our vitality. Reason is subject to the tests of logic and observable, demonstrable phenomena. Faith is tested by our desire and will. One cannot see faith, just as one cannot pour out hope or love from a beaker. Self-sacrifice and devotion escape the strongest microscope, but such qualities of spirit can be shown and known by us all ... And so with God's messengers, more believed than seen, more felt than touched, our angel's exist in open hearts, if we have but faith. — Keith Donohue

For a long time I've walked through this world with the desire, like in Rear Window, to look into other people's lives because I know that there is a way in which I am the same as so many of the strangers that I see. — Will Oldham

There are things in life you hope to do some day - like ride in a hot air balloon or go to Paris- and there are things that you know you will never do because, in a nutshell, the desire isn't there. — Alice J. Wisler

We know that it is possible to harness desire to many interests, that evil is one form of a desire, and not the nature of it. — Walter Lippmann

If there be any who nurture in their hearts the poisonous brew of enmity toward another, I plead with you to ask the Lord for strength to forgive. This expression of desire will be of the very substance of your repentance. It may not be easy, and it may not come quickly. But if you will seek it with sincerity and cultivate it, it will come. And even though he whom you have forgiven continues to pursue and threaten you, you will know you have done what you could to effect a reconciliation. There will come into your heart a peace otherwise unattainable. — Gordon B. Hinckley

It looked like she held a basketful of woven gold.
Arin leap down the stairs. He strode up to his cousin and seized her arm.
"Arin!"
"What did you do?"
Sarsine jerked away. "What she wanted. Pull yourself together."
But Arin only saw Kestrel as she had been last night before the ball. How her hair had been a spill of low light over his palms. He had threaded desire into those braids, had wanted her to sense it even as he dreaded that she would. He had met her eyes in the mirror, and didn't know, couldn't tell her feelings. He only knew the fire of his own.
"It's just hair," Sarsine said. "It will grow back."
"Yes," said Arin, "but no everything does. — Marie Rutkoski

I have found that to tell the truth is the hardest thing on earth. Harder than fighting in a war, harder than taking part in a revolution.
"If you try it, you will find that at times sweat will break upon you. You will find that even if you succeed in discounting the attitudes of others to you and your life, you must wrestle with yourself most of all. Fight with yourself. Because there will surge up in you a strong desire to alter facts, to dress up your feelings.
"You'll find that there are many things you don't want to admit about yourself and others.
"As your record shapes itself, an awed wonder haunts you. And yet there is no more exciting an adventure than trying to be honest in this way. The clean, strong feeling that sweeps you when you've done it makes you know that. — Richard Wright

It was not for the piano-tuner to know that in this still, grey, winter-gripped dining-room, this apparent mortuary of desire and passion (in which the lift rumbled and knives and forks scraped upon plates), waves were flowing forward and backward, and through and through, of hellish revulsion and unquenchable hatred! — Patrick Hamilton

There are types of people who want to have leverage over other people's lives. For no other reason than they feel the need to have leverage. I find this to be a certain type of sickness of the mind. You could argue that they wish you no harm, however, the desire to simply have leverage over another - whether this is mental, emotional or physical - is, I think, a sickness of the mind. I can honestly say right now that I, 100%, have no manipulative intentions to gain leverage over any other person that I know. — C. JoyBell C.

Well, I once lived in a town full of ambitious people, people who aspired to having, be it wealth or power. It was an unhappy town. Your cause may be more noble than theirs, but nevertheless it is important to know the difference between having and being. If desire burns too strong in a man it will consume him. A man who says he will not rest until he has made a certain amount of money will not rest even then, for his desire will drive him to greater wealth. A man who says he will not be happy until he has obtained a certain woman will seek another once he has had her. I know this to be true because I was such a man. If you are not happy now you may never be happy. — Danny Scheinmann

I say, "Well then I don't know if it was real,
and that makes me feel like I'm going insane again."
"Absolutely it was real. It was a real, partial picture. Because it ended preemptively, things you would have learned about him in the relationship, you are instead learning in the breakup. You have learned that he has a desperate desire for intimacy
and then a desperate desire for the cave.
He will get lonely there eventually and come back."
"To me?"
He doesn't pause. "To someone new."
"And I'll have to watch another girl?"
"You will have to, but you will also know
what lies ahead for that poor girl. — Emma Forrest

I want to look at someone and know that every need and wish and desire i have matches his, not that my every need and wish and desire clashes with his. Unification should be the overall theme of a relationship. — Sara Raasch

If you would improve, be content to be thought foolish and dull with regard to externals. Do not desire to be thought to know anything; and though you should appear to others to be somebody, distrust yourself. For be assured, it is not easy at once to keep your will in harmony with nature and to secure externals; but while you are absorbed in the one, you must of necessity neglect the other. XIV — Epictetus

When my sons arrived in the family, their legal status was not ambiguous at all. They were our kids. But their wants and affections were still atrophied by a year in the orphanage. They didn't know that flies on their faces were bad. They didn't know that a strange man feeding them their first scary gulps of solid food wasn't a torturer. Life in the cribs alone must have seemed to them like freedom. That's what I was missing about the biblical doctrine of adoption. Sure it's glorious in the long run. But it sure seems like hell in the short run ... — Russell D. Moore

I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don't say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you. — Anais Nin

Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence. They go on living, mortally wounded but resigned, weeping often but with no desire to strike back against the person who has injured them, praying for him and cherishing their memories until their last breath. That is love, true love, the love the angels know ... — Honore De Balzac

Humankind is that creature who lost a part of its animal instinct in order to gain access to "desire," as it is called. Once their natural needs are satisfied, humans desire intensely, but they don't know exactly what they desire, for no instinct guides them. We do not each have our own desire, one really our own. The essence of desire is to have no essential goal. Truly to desire, we must have recourse to people about us; we have to borrow their desires. — Rene Girard

Achieve the success they truly desire because they get impatient. They want easy success or none at all. They see the path to success as a frustration, an impediment. Each day spent short of the ultimate goal is viewed as a time of failure and as an annoyance. As such, they get distracted by hundreds of little things that each day try to get us off our course. Yet the successful among us know the truth: — Earl Nightingale

When our freedom to have something is limited, the item becomes less available, and we experience an increased desire for it. However, we rarely recognize that psychological reactance has caused us to want the item more; all we know is that we want it. Still, we need to make sense of our desire for the item, so we begin to assign it positive qualities to justify the desire. — Robert B. Cialdini

I'm just a girl from Flatbush, Bo. There's nothing special here.""You're so wrong.""I know what people think. To friends and family I'm sweet and helpless. To guys I'm a body.""Your body is spectacular. I'm not going to pretend I don't see that. But I can have any body. You've lit something inside me. And it's you, not your assets.""You don't know me. We've hardly scratched the surface.""That's why I need time. I want to know your story, your dreams, your longings. Every part I see makes me want more." He was speaking her own desire to understand him, because his real self called to her more strongly than anyone she'd known , even people she'd known for years. — Kristen Heitzmann

This is why, when we have been particularly impressed by a book, we feel the need to talk about it; we do not want to get away from it by talking about it - we simply want to understand more clearly what it is in which we have been entangled. We have undergone an experience, and now we want to know consciously what we have experienced. Perhaps this is the prime usefulness of literary criticism - it helps to make conscious those aspects of the text which would otherwise remain concealed in the subconscious; it satisfies (or helps to satisfy) our desire to talk about what we have read. — Wolfgang Iser

I'm trying to look at many, many things in modern life that I believe are going faster, and I'm trying to look at why they're going faster and what effect they have on us. We all know about FedEx and instant pudding, but it doesn't mean we've looked at all the consequences of our desire for speed. — James Gleick

Nothing excites men's curiosity so much as Mystery, concealing things which they desire to know; and nothing so much increases curiosity as obstacles that interpose to prevent them from indulging in the gratification of their desires. Of this the Legislators and Hierophants took advantage, to attract the people to their sanctuaries, and to induce them to seek to obtain lessons from which they would perhaps have turned away with indifference if they had been pressed upon them. — Albert Pike

No scientist knows the world merely by holding it at arm's length: if we ever managed to build the objectivist wall between the knower and the known, we could know nothing except the wall itself. Science requires an engagement with the world, a live encounter between the knower and the known. That encounter has moments of distance, but it would not be an encounter without moments of intimacy as well. Knowing of any sort is relational, animated by a desire to come into deeper community with what we know. — Parker J. Palmer

The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn't have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn't get as far as Hoboken at that time. — Ben Shahn

I give away about 50 percent of my income, so my, you know, desire to give back to the country is pretty strong and I intend to give away a lot more. I've signed the giving pledge with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, and I intend to give away the bulk of my money. — David Rubenstein

Bree arched, trying to stretch out her muscles and Alessandro gave her a dirty look as if she was displaying herself to him on purpose. Well, maybe she was a little. Even though he blocked her from the hotel attendant's gaze with his body in the doorway, Bree was sure to cover herself with the blanket. Alessandro turned around, pulling in the tray with him and his eyes flared hungrily as he looked down at her. "You look like a beautiful debauched angel," he said, his voice rough with desire. "And you're what, the demon that's corrupted me?" Bree asked raising an eyebrow and letting the blanket fall down to her waist, baring her to him. "It's my life's work, you know?" Alessandro grinned, going down on to his knees and leaning over her. Bree placed a hand on his chest, halting him. "Is that coffee, I smell?" she asked. "The debauched angel is kind of hungry." She bit her lip and smiled up at his frustrated face. — E. Jamie

Eyes whose color I would never be able to fully describe, even if I someday learn the words. The best I can do is compare it to things I do know: the heavy thickness of red gold, the smell of brass on a hot day, desire and pride. — N.K. Jemisin

There are a lot of talkers in the world. There are a lot of people who know what's right and what's powerful, yet still aren't producing the results they desire. It's not enough to talk the talk. You've got to walk the talk — Tony Robbins

Well,' he said, 'I don't know. What's the use of my generalizing? I only know my own case. I like women, but I don't desire them. I like talking to them; but talking to them, though it makes me intimate in one direction, sets me poles apart from them as far as kissing is concerned. So there you are! But don't take me as a general example, probably I'm just a special case: one of the men who like women, but don't love women, and even hate them if they force me into a pretence of love, or an entangled appearance. — D.H. Lawrence

Bayleigh got up from the table and walked slowly toward Cade, the shirt she'd stolen from him barely buttoned and enticing him with every step. His pupils dilated with desire and she watched his cock swell beneath his jeans. She moved as if she were going to straddle his lap, but at the last second, she moved her knee so it was pressed directly against his balls. His indrawn breath was enough to know that she was using the right amount of pressure.
"Don't you ever threaten me with my brothers", she whispered in his ears. "I get enough of that from them and I won't take it from you too, no matter how much control you think our sleeping together gives you. I'm old enough to make my own decisions and take the consequences of my actions. I control my life. No one else."
She nipped at his ear and felt satisfaction at his indrawn breath. — Liliana Hart

No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it
to remain children of light. — Albert Schweitzer

So what is it that you are doing - seeking security in your restlessness? The desire to be secure is one of the most curious things. And that security must be recognized by the world; I don't know whether you see this. I write a book and in the book I find my security. But that book must be recognized by the world, otherwise there is no security. So look what I've done - my security lies in the opinion of the world!...So it means I am deceiving myself constantly. — Krishnamurti

To possess and exercise omniscience is to never have sensed temperature, experienced a single emotion, or practiced a single vice. It is to have never been amazed, concerned, analytical, or sympathetic. By exercising omniscience, an Omni-maximum being could not move, be moved, or inspired. Such a being could not interfere, empathise, interject, alter, adjust, or give advice. Ever. Such a being could not devise a plan, hear music, imagine a story, or recognise art or deviancy in any guise, for it could never differentiate creativity from cold reality. Such a being could not know doubt, desire, success, or failure. It could not, therefore, know itself, and if it is incapable of that, then it is incapable of experiencing pleasure. — John Zande

You just happened to have a bottle of wine and two wine glasses here?" I asked skeptically.
Hunter smiled conspiratorially and said, "It's a rule of mine to have it available in case of special occasions. You know, like a beautiful woman in my apartment with a desire for ... answers. — L.J. Kentowski

It is usual for a woman, even though she may ardently desire to give herself to a man, to feign reluctance, to simulate alarm or indignation. She must be brought to consent by urgent pleading, by lies, adjurations, and promises. I know that only professional prostitutes are accustomed to answer such an invitation with a perfectly frank assent
prostitutes, or simple-minded, immature girls. — Stefan Zweig

for the first time, there burst upon me the idea that there might be real marvels all about us, that the visible world might be only a curtain to conceal huge realms uncharted by my very simple theology. And that started in me something with which, on and off, I have had plenty of trouble since - the desire for the preternatural, simply as such, the passion for the Occult. Not everyone has this disease; those who have will know what I mean. I once tried to describe it in a novel. It is a spiritual lust; and like the lust of the body it has the fatal power of making everything else in the world seem uninteresting while it lasts. It is probably this passion, more even than the desire for power, which makes magicians. — C.S. Lewis

Don't you know that there's another bubble as well An expectations bubble. Bigger houses private planes yachts ... stupid salaries and bonuses. People come to desire these things and expect them. But the expectations bubble will burst as well as all bubbles do.
Come to my gallery and I will sell you beautiful things at a more reasonable price. But the point is that they will have value. Things of real beauty things of the spirit. — Edward Rutherfurd

- Oscar Wilde said that we always destroy the thing we love the most. And it is true. The simple possibility of achieving that which we desire causes the soul of the common man to be filled with guilt. He looks around, and sees many others who have not succeeded, and so he thinks he does not deserve it. He forgets everything he overcame, all he suffered, everything he had to renounce in order to come this far. I know many people who, when they are within reach of their Personal Legend, make a series of silly mistakes and do not attain their objective - when it was just one step away. — Paulo Coelho

Adam stared down at me, his expression thunderous. "It was you. I know it was you."
My head was rocking side to side before I could stop it. "No." I wrenched my hand free of his. "You're wrong."
"I'm not!" Anger blazed hot behind his eyes as they burned into me. "Look at me, Kia! Look me in the eye and tell me you're not her. — Airicka Phoenix

All men desire by nature to know. — Aristotle.

I understand now that desperate, clumsy desire to make people feel better - even when you know perfectly well that nothing will. — Liane Moriarty

There can be no relation more strange, more critical, than that between two beings who know each other only with their eyes, who meet daily, yes, even hourly, eye each other with a fixed regard, and yet by some whim or freak of convention feel constrained to act like strangers. Uneasiness rules between them, unslaked curiosity, a hysterical desire to give rein to their suppressed impulse to recognize and address each other; even, actually, a sort of strained but mutual regard. For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that he does not, the craving he feels is evidence. — Thomas Mann

Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself, 'Who could be the Master of these beautiful things?' I felt a great desire to see him, to know him and to pay him homage. — Josephine Bakhita

I look down past the stars to a terrifying darkness. I seem to recognize the place, but it's impossible. "Accident," I whisper. I will fall. I seem to desire the fall, and though I fight it with all my will I know in advance I can't win. Standing baffled, quaking with fear, three feet from the edge of a nightmare cliff, I find myself, incredibly, moving towards it. I look down, down, into bottomless blackness, feeling the dark power moving in me like an ocean current, some monster inside me, deep sea wonder, dread night monarch astir in his cave, moving me slowly to my voluntary tumble into death. — John Gardner

Most humans know their own "reason" only in the sense that Hume defined it, as "a slave to the passions"-and by "passions" he meant not moral passions or the passions of transcendent genius, but only low appetites or base desires, which society and economy ultimately shape and spur on in us. — Kenny Smith

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity ... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough ... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes- dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery. — Raymond B. Fosdick

But perhaps there is another, more personal reason for my disagreement with Ramin: I cannot imagine myself feeling at home in a place that is indifferent to what has become my true home, a land with no borders and few restrictions, which I have taken to calling "the Republic of Imagination." I think of it as Nabokov's "somehow, somewhere" or Alice's backyard, a world that runs parallel to the real one, whose occupants need no passport or documentation. The only requirements for entry are an open mind, a restless desire to know and an indefinable urge to escape the mundane. — Azar Nafisi

Malice or desire and intention to harm is often rooted in how we think about the persons concerned: our images of them, the inferences we habitually draw about them, and so forth. Perhaps we see them only as an obstacle to our desires, or as less than "human," as worthless. Perhaps we need to take steps toward seeing them as objects of God's love, or as beings of intrinsic value, like our own children or grandchildren or others we delight in. That will, in turn, require changes in how we think about our world and our self. All of this may be helped along by getting to know them, seeing what their life is like, or serving them. — Dallas Willard

So what brings you to the doctor today?"
"hmm, im afraid i have the chronic desire to save people"
"i know about that. i've got it too. maybe it's catching."
"not catching enough — Deb Caletti

Ah sir," replied Caderousse, "we cannot console those who will not be consoled, and he was one of these; besides, I know not why, but he seemed to dislike seeing me. One night, however, I heard his sobs, and I could not resist my desire to go up to him, but when I reached his door he was no longer weeping but praying.
I cannot now repeat to you, sir, all the eloquent words and imploring language he made use of; it was more than piety, it was more than grief, and I, who am no canter, and hate the Jesuits, said then to myself, 'It is really well, and I am very glad that I have not any children; for if I were a father and felt such excessive grief as the old man does, and did not find in my memory or heart all he is now saying, I should throw myself into the sea at once, for I could not bear it. — Alexandre Dumas

Presently, I sense within me the slightest touch. The harmony of one chord lingers in my mind. It fuses, divides, searches
but for what? I open my eyes, position the fingers of my right hand on the buttons, and play out a series of permutations.
After a time, I am able, as if by will, to locate the first four notes. They drift down from inward skies, softly, as early morning sunlight. They find me; these are the notes I have been seeking.
I hold down the chord key and press the individual notes over and over again. The four notes seem to desire further notes, another chord. I strain to hear the chord that follows. The first four notes lead me to the next five, then to another chord and three more notes.
It is a melody. Not a complete song, but the first phrase of one. I play the three chords and twelve notes, also, over and over again. It is a song, I realize, I know. — Haruki Murakami

My mantra is that I can go back home at anytime. I have a degree, I am smart, and I am honest. I care about my career and what I do, yet I know my lane and where I desire to go. — Tone Bell

Do you know what a free mind is? Have you ever observed your own mind? It is not free, is it? You are always watching to see what your friends say about you. Your mind is like a house enclosed by a fence or by barbed wire. In that state no new thing can take place. A new thing can happen only when there is no fear. And it is extremely difficult for the mind to be free of fear, because that implies being really free of the desire to imitate, to follow, free of the desire to amass wealth or to conform to a tradition - which does not mean that you do something outrageous. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

By all the gods, I desire you, but you must know that you have my love. It's given, sieva. Wholly entrusted to you. Have a care with it. — Kresley Cole

I desire to know you. Every breath of your heart, every fleeting look on your face, the rhythm of your joys, and the melancholy of your sorrows. — Ella Leya

She watched his throat move, and then, he reached out and touched her face. "You sure are pretty," he said. "It's the stone," she replied immediately. Her skin felt warm; his fingertip touched just the very edge of her mouth. "It's flattering." Adam gently pulled the stone out of her hand and a set it on the floorboards between them. Through his ingers he threaded one of the flyaway hairs by her cheek. "My mother used to say, 'Don't throw compliments away, so long as they're free." HIs face was very earnest. "That one wasn't mean tho cost you anything, Blue." Blue plucked at the hem on her dress, but she didn't look away from him. "I don't know what to say when you say things like that." "You can tell me if you want me to keep saying them." She was torn by the desire to encourage him and the fear of where it would lead. "I like when you say things like that." Adam asked, "But what?" "I didn't say but." "You meant to. I heard it. — Maggie Stiefvater

What we desire in our hearts, Arathan, and what must be ... well, that is a rare embrace, so rare you're likely to never know it. You have lived that truth. I have no promises to make you. I cannot say what awaits you, but you are now in your year and the time has come for you to make your life. — Steven Erikson

The attention is to be kept pure. In Sahaja Yoga you know all the methods how the attention, one can keep it pure. If the attention is not pure, then this desire will be always attacked by all petty, nonsensical things which have no meaning in your ascent. — Nirmala Srivastava

In any activity, we have to know what to expect, how to reach our objectives and what capacity we possess for the proposed task. The only people who can say they have renounced the fruit are those who, thus equipped, feel no desire for the results of the conquest, and remain absorbed in combat. You can renounce the fruit, but this renunciation does not mean indifference toward the result. — Paulo Coelho

Do me a favor," he whispers, curling my fingers over the back of his and bringing them to his mouth. "What?" His eyes never leave mine as he brushes his lips over my knuckles. "Dream of me tonight," he says softly. He watches me, waiting for a response. I have no words, so I simply nod. He doesn't need to know that no one else occupies my dreams. No one. "Dream of my lips, teasing you." Straightening one of my fingers, he kisses the tip. His voice is like velvet and his words are like an aphrodisiac. "Dream of my tongue, tasting you." His tongue sneaks out to flick the end of my finger. A surge of desire rocks my core. "And I'll dream of you. Of what it feels like to be inside your warm, wet body. — M. Leighton

I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge. — Luc De Clapiers

Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know... — Jospeh Conrad

There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here's the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don't yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.
Jeff Bezos
From 7 insightful quotes to shareholders via letter. 2017 — Malini Chaudhri

I flipped through Xuanzang's records almost 1400 years later, and thought that the written word was a fragile truth. His records were meticulous, but there was a vastness left unsaid. There were spools of thought that fell through the cracks and were swallowed by time. I hungered to know if he ever lost sight of is training, if on empty mountain roads loneliness crept into the sides of his mind till he thought he was mad, if in foreign marketplaces he succumbed to desire or greed or temper. — Mishi Saran

She didn't know Matt had followed her until he grabbed her shoulder, halting her headlong rush to nowhere. He turned her into his arms, pulled her against his chest, crushed her mouth in a searing kiss.
"Shane," he said when he raised his head from hers. "I love you. I love you."
Her heart opened and the wall inside her trembled as she clung to him. "Burn me up, Matt," she said, her voice a ragged whisper. "Burn it away. Please, please, burn it all away."
She heard him growl deep in his throat and he lifted her into his arms in one swift movement.
As he carried her back across the parking lot and through the door of her room, she rained kisses on his neck and the hard line of his jaw. His skin was warm and damp and tasted of salt and desire. — Jane Taylor Starwood

The ability to make a decision doesn't require the absence of doubt or fear. Both vanish in the presence of responsibility, which emerges naturally in the presence of will. When we know what we truly want, the doubts that blur our decisions, the fears that make us succumb to luck and fate, all become secondary in the face of reason. That's when we understand that our freewill and our options weren't really there. We have created both by desire. The decision is basically conscience asking us to act on our subconscious desires. — Robin Sacredfire