Wanting Simple Things Quotes & Sayings

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever. — Aldous Huxley

There is a lot of fun to be had when you try and fit as many words as you can within a three-minute song, but there is also a lot of fun in trying to get that message across in three words, or better yet when the music can overpower the words and convey something really pure and perfect ... It's as simple as wanting to lift the spirits. — Saul Williams

But two things are wanting in American civilization - a keener and deeper, broader and tenderer sense of justice - a sense of humanity, which shall crystallize into the life of a nation the sentiment that justice, simple justice, is the right, not simply of the strong and powerful, but of the weakest and feeblest of all God's children ... — Frances Harper

If the rewards to authors go down, simple economics says there will be fewer authors. It's not that people won't burn with the passion to write. The number of people wanting to be novelists is probably not going to decline - but certainly the number of people who are going to be able to make a living as authors is going to dramatically decrease. — Scott Turow

I think performance art comes from a simple place of wanting to express things beyond just sound. — Amanda Palmer

This same system could condemn injustice, but instead it chooses to condemn something as simple and fundamental as the search for the second half. We are all born wanting this. Why does it matter what shape this second half takes, provided it is the thing both sides seek? — Martha Brockenbrough

Franklin says, "war is robbery, commerce is generally cheating."[164] If the transformation of merchants' money into capital is to be explained otherwise than by the producers being simply cheated, a long series of intermediate steps would be necessary, which, at present, when the simple circulation of commodities forms our only assumption, are entirely wanting. — Karl Marx

Wanting Kate was one thing. Sex was simple. Or it could be. But liking her?
Enjoying spending time with her? Allowing her into his private life, as Brody had tonight, albeit at his sisters' invitation? It would lead to nothing but trouble. — Jackie Braun

This We Have Now

This we have no
is not imagination.

This is not
grief or joy.

Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.

Those come
and go.

This is the presence
that doesn't.

It's dawn, Husam,
here in the splendor of coral,
inside the Friend, the simple truth
of what Hallaj said.

What else could human beings want?

When grapes turn to wine
they're wanting
this.

When the nightsky pours by,
it's really a crowd of beggars,
and they all want some of this!

This
that we are now
created the body, cell by cell,
like bees building a honeycomb.

The human body and the universe
grew from this, not this
from the universe and the human body. — Jalaluddin Rumi

eople - even good, impressive people - always want something simple and unimpressive. Everything good and impressive that they do in their lives is a result of the impressive path they take to get what they want - not a result of wanting an impressive thing. — B.J. Novak

He was accustomed to women wanting him. What shocked him was the simple fact that he wanted her.
Not hot, energetic sex. Not a blow job from a novice. He wanted her with a
perplexing intensity he hadn't felt in years. He was the King of Death, and she was his consort.
And no amount of common sense could distract him. — Anne Stuart

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital- T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out. — David Foster Wallace

The thing that contributes to anyone's reaching the goal he wants is simple wanting that goal badly enough. — Charles E. Wilson

There is a simple rule we can follow to guide us in our conversation: If it is good, uplifting, wholesome, and pleasant, say all you want to, but if it is evil, negative, critical, and complaining, then don't say it. Ask God to change your heart so there is not even a hint of wanting to say it. What is in our heart will eventually come out of our mouth, so we cannot change what we say unless we change what we think. — Joyce Meyer

The wars around the globe into which religion is woven
violence that over the past two decades has sent many tens of thousands of men, women, and children to terrible deaths in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, India, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the United States
deeply threaten what we have of a human society. Denouncing religion itself is futile. And such simple reactions badly miss the point. It is among the religious believers that the work must be done, within that overwhelming majority who would find common ground in being human and not wanting destruction, if only because their traditions are about so much more. Those traditions contain life-giving possibilities, even if the worst demagogues would try to twist dogma so hard as to wring poison from it. — Gustav Niebuhr

What do you want?'

'All of it.' She laughed, but there was something brittle in the sound that broke his heart. 'I'm selfish and greedy and want all. I want everything I can snatch up and hold, then I want to go back and get more. Why can't I want the simple and the ordinary and the quiet, Aidan? Why can't I be content with easy dreams?'

'You're so hard on yourself, mavourneen. Harder than anyone else can be. Some people want the simple and the ordinary and the quiet. It doesn't make those who want the complicated and extraordinary and the exciting greedy or selfish. Wanting's wanting, whatever the dream. — Nora Roberts

Our house was a collection of silences, each room a mute, empty frame, each of us three oscillating bodies (Mom, Dad, me) moving around in our own curved functions, from space to space, not making any noise, just waiting, waiting to wait, trying, for some reason, not to disrupt the field of silence, not to perturb the delicate equilibrium of the system. We wandered from room to room, just missing one another, on paths neither chosen by us nor random, but determined by our own particular characteristics, our own properties, unable to deviate, to break from our orbital loops, unable to do something as simple as walking into the next room where our beloved, our father, our mother, our child, our wife, our husband, was sitting, silent, waiting but not realizing it, waiting for someone to say something, anything, wanting to do it, yearning to do it, physically unable to bring ourselves to change our velocities. — Charles Yu

To pastors and teachers
Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention.
Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms ... you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language ...
A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

You said you needed to see me again, too.'
'Did it help?'
'More than you'll ever know.'
I tightened my arm around his waist, wanting nothing more from the moment than what it was.
That simple moment, touching him, feeling him breathe, his hand stroking my hair - it was all I could have hoped for, all I could have wanted. I was filled up with it, this warm, buzzing feeling in my chest, and it was completely satisfying.
I wondered if it might be what I needed after all. — Sarah Fine

And yet, despite the multiplicity of times we've done it, it is still a funny, exultant, true thing - where for a short time you turn into something else and fly; where you stop fretting and wanting, and are simply alight with joy - and all while never venturing beyond the walls of your room. And I would put our continued success down to one simple thing. At the end of every tumbling session, one of us will turn to the other and say, "Thank you very much. That was very pleasant. Very pleasant indeed. My dear, I am much obliged to you."
Because at the end of the day, that is the hottest sex tip of all: gratitude. That you've found someone who wants to do that thing, with you, and no government has yet found a way to charge you VAT on it. You can set fire to the sky, and not be charged a penny.
Sometimes, it's great being a human. — Caitlin Moran

The third level of wanting is "I commit to being rich." The definition of the word commit is to "devote oneself unreservedly." This means holding absolutely nothing back; giving 100 percent of everything you've got to achieving wealth. It means being willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. This is the warrior's way. No excuses, no ifs, no butts, no maybes-and failure isn't an option. The warrior's way is simple: "I will be rich or I will die trying." — T. Harv Eker

This was my ambition: to become a good wife and mother. Plus one improbable extra: [ ... ] to find, deep inside, my own wiser self, to locate my own special future.
I thought these were modest ambitions. They didn't seem too yawning or huge. But perhaps wanting what's essential and simple is the most extravagant wish of all. — Lydia Minatoya

Our bond is growing stronger with each blood exchange, with each passing moment we are together.
"So if we were apart I might stop wanting to be around you?" she teased. "If I had known it was that simple, I would have sat outside most of the time."
He caressed her silky hair. I will allow you to do this thing, but do not - he broke off the thought abruptly.
But not before Shea caught the echo of the primitive, territorial male. Her eyebrows shot up. Sometimes he reminded her more of a wild animal than a man. "Less of this allow stuff. It offends my independent nature. — Christine Feehan

He's not wanting to fight," she assured the captain.
"He is driven by curiosity?" Deudermont asked.
"By loyalty," Catti-brie answered. "And nothing more. Drizzt is bound by friendship to ye and to the crew, and if a simple contest against the man will make for an easier sail, then he's up to the fight. But there is no curiosity in Drizzt. No stupid pride. He's not for caring who's the better at swordplay."
Deudermont nodded and his expression brightened. The young woman's words confirmed his belief in his friend. — R.A. Salvatore

Success, as we categorize it, is a simple and pitiable thing. It's only a matter of degree of wanting, and accident. Wanting plays the major role in everybody's life--accident all the others. The only condition any of us can be sure of in this universe is wanting. How tepid or burning hot the want is depends on accident. But since accident isn't really as accidental as we'd like to think--accident is the great fooler and comforter of mankind--we become 'successful' exactly to the degree we want. — Edna Robinson

Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy but men and will power. — Benito Mussolini

The life of less, one bent on simplicity, and not needing or wanting anything other than what God has deemed good for you turns out to be all you could ever need or want. — Hayley DiMarco

Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes. — Mark Twain

Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths ... all faiths ... are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. The church consists of a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control. — Dan Brown

Call it "womb awe" or even "womb worship" but it's not simple envy. I don't remember even wanting to be a woman. But each of the three times I have been present at the birth of one of my children, I have been overwhelmed by a sense of reverence ... It was quite suddenly, the first day of creation; the Goddess giving birth to a world ... Like men since the beginning of time I wondered: What can I ever create that will equal the magnificence of this new life? — Sam Keen

Because the divine goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, God produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting in one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided. Thus the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature. — Thomas Aquinas

All around us are complex people trying to live simple lives," she said. "Wanting simple things with tangled hearts. — Cole McCade

Sometimes, people just stop wanting to be with you, plain and simple. It happens. And it's always best to just leave it at that. It's always best to just let it all go. — Marla Miniano

He isn't interested in simple. He wants what he wants. No matter how much trouble she is and no matter whether he even understands it himself. — Deanna Raybourn

The human being is constantly torn from calm and peace of simple existence by two things; wanting what you don't have, or disliking what you have. — Paul Fleischman

Had it taken her this long to discover that she lacked some simple mental trick that everyone else had, a mechanism so ordinary that no one ever mentioned it, an immediate sensual connection to people and events, and to her own needs and desires? All these years she had lived in isolation within herself and, strangely, from herself, never wanting or daring to look back. — Ian McEwan

Ashes

The tide comes in; the tide goes out again
washing the beach clear of what the storm
dumped. Where there were rocks, today there is sand;
where sand yesterday, now uncovered rocks.

So I think on where her mortal remains
might reach landfall in their transmuted forms,
a year now since I cast them from my hand
- wanting to stop the inexorable clock.

She who died by her own hand cannot know
the simple love I have for what she left
behind. I could not save her. I could not
even try. I watch the way the wind blows
life into slack sail: the stress of warp against weft
lifts the stalling craft, pushes it on out. — Paula Meehan

Her body didn't give a damn that he was all wrong for her, it wanted him anyway. Badly. Either oblivious of or not wanting to encourage the attraction between them, Wade looked down at his mug as though he wasn't comfortable holding her gaze at such close range, and took a sip. As he swallowed, one side of his mouth curved up and he let out an appreciative groan that seemed to reverberate right through her, heating her blood. Startled, she drank in the almost dreamy expression on his angular face and imagined that same look right after he'd enjoyed an intensely satisfying orgasm. Erin couldn't be positive, but if his reaction to a simple cup of coffee made him groan like that, she was pretty sure it had been a while since he'd had one of those, too. And man, the idea of being the one to end his dry spell was way too freaking hot for her own good. — Kaylea Cross

He had imagined Constantinople, had wanted it for Mehmed. It had been simple and straightforward. But now he knew the true cost of things, the murky horrors of the distance between wanting something and getting it. — Kiersten White

I felt despair. The word's overused and banalified now, despair, but it's a serious word, and I'm using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture - a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It's maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it's not these things, quite. It's more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I'm small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It's wanting to jump overboard. — David Foster Wallace

True beauty radiates not from outer cosmetics, but from the simple joy of making a difference for those that need your voice, passion, and time without expecting or wanting anything in return ... — Deborah Barnes

I started with wanting to think about witches, about strong women who have special powers - who are often misunderstood. Then I found some beautiful blue fabric, so I made Blue Witches. My creative process is always like that. Organic, text, theme, subtext, each day evolving and trying to make strong, beautiful clothes. It's that simple. — Rei Kawakubo

This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following: Stop it! It's that simple. We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Both scientists and laypeople can find themselves seduced into the easy trap of wanting to assign each function of the brain to a specific location. Perhaps because of pressure for simple sound bites, a steady stream of reports in the media (and even in the scientific literature) has created the false impression that the brain area for such-and-such has just been discovered. Such reports feed popular expectation and hope for easy labeling, but the true situation is much more interesting: the continuous networks of neural circuitry accomplish their functions using multiple, independently discovered strategies. The brain lends itself well to the complexity of the world, but poorly to clear-cut cartography. — David Eagleman