You Are Nothing But Your Desires Quotes & Sayings

My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way.. — Bram Stoker

If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no 'friction,' no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole. — P.D. Ouspensky

It is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits. — Saint Augustine

True peacefulness comes from abandoning the illustion that satisfying desires brings pleasure. — Joan Z. Borysenko

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

It's scary to make major changes, but we usually have enough courage to take the next right step. One small step and then another. That's what it takes to raise a child, to get a degree, to write a book, to do whatever it is your heart desires. — Regina Brett

He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires. — Leo Tolstoy

That most natural human appetite, the hunger for somewhere else. — Victor LaValle

She wept over the vanity of her desires, which had so ardently flown to the blossoming flesh that now had already withered forever. — Marcel Proust

Seven deadly sins,
seven ways to win,
seven holy paths to hell,
and your trip begins
Seven downward slopes
seven bloodied hopes
seven are your burning fires,
seven your desires ... — Iron Maiden

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires. — Anjem Choudary

Christ says, Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good ... Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked
the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours. — C.S. Lewis

Music is the most absorbing of all the arts. It absorbs the mind of the artist, whether creator or executant, to the exclusion of every other consideration outside his own immediate necessities or desires. — Baroness Orczy

Katy was neither a Methodist nor a Masochist. She was a goddess and the silence of goddesses is genuinely golden. None of your superficial plating. A solid, twenty-two-carat silence all the way through. The Olympian's trap is kept shut, not by an act of willed discretion, but because there's really nothing to say. Goddesses are all of one piece. There's no internal conflict in them. Whereas the lives of people like you and me are one long argument. Desires on one side, woodpeckers on the other. Never a moment of real silence. — Aldous Huxley

Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy - a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions. — Ayn Rand

For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment. — Alan W. Watts

I am not saying that you should renounce things, that you should escape from your home and renounce the marketplace. No, don't misunderstand my statement. What is, is good. Nothing will happen either by dropping things and escaping from them or by clinging to them. Remain where you are, but begin the search within. Much outer searching has already been done, now go within. Now know the one, in this knowing one attains all. All desires are at once fulfilled. — Rajneesh

Increase and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfill them. It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Transform desire into love. All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be are expressions of your longing for happiness. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

You are nothing but your desires, dreams, thoughts, and beliefs — Debasish Mridha

You can be sure that your deepest desires reveal important truths about your spiritual condition. — Tullian Tchividjian

Since changes are going on anyway, the great thing is to learn enough about them so that we will be able to lay hold of them and turn them in the direction of our desires. Conditions and events are neither to be fled from nor passively acquiesced in; they are to be utilized and directed. — John Dewey

Mapping out your own future in the form of images, phrases, and inspirational words that you are able to see every day will help reinforce your desires to attain what you set out to achieve. — Robert Cheeke

All the evils in the world come not because our desires for happiness are too strong, but because they are so weak that we settle for fleeting pleasures that do not satisfy our deepest souls, but in the end destroy them. The root of all evil is that we are the kind of people who settle for the love of money instead of the love of God (1 Timothy 6:10). — John Piper

The secret of happiness is simple: find out what you truly love to do and then direct all of your energy towards doing it. Once you do this, abundance flows into your life and all your desires are filled with ease and grace. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari — Robin S. Sharma

And more than once in the course of time, the same theme reappears: among the mystics of the fifteenth century, it has become the motif of the soul as a skiff, abandoned on the infinite sea of desires, in the sterile field of cares and ignorance, among the mirages of knowledge, amid the unreason of the world - a craft at the mercy of the sea's great madness, unless it throws out a solid anchor, faith, or raises its spiritual sails so that the breath of God may bring it to port. — Michel Foucault

Pragmatism and subjectivism obscure the reality of the truth. They engage the mind, but they make it the servant of our desires and our work. But they can't answer which desires I should pursue and which work is worthwhile. — John Piper

As an exercise bicycling is superior to most, if not all, others at our command. It takes one into the outdoor air; it is entirely under control; can be made gentle or vigorous as one desires; is active and not passive; takes the rider outside of himself and the thoughts and cares of his daily work; develops his will, his attention, his courage and independence; and makes pleasant what is otherwise irksome. — Frances E. Willard

How English you are, Basil! If one puts
forward an idea to a real Englishman, - always a rash
thing to do, - he never dreams of considering whether the
idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any
importance is whether one believes it one's self. Now, the
value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the
sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the
probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it
will not be colored by either his wants, his desires, or his
prejudices. However, I don't propose to discuss politics,
sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better
than principles. Tell me more about Dorian Gray. How
often do you see him? — Oscar Wilde

Raising a daughter is an extremely political act in this culture. Mothers have been placed in a no-win situation with their daught ers: if they teach their daughters simply how to get along in a world that has been shaped by men and male desires, then they betray their daughters' potential But, if they do not, they leave their daughters adrift in a hostile world without survival strategies. — Elizabeth Debold

I'm like most women. I want a steamy romance novel, or something sweet and tender." "I knew the romance genre was big, especially with women, but I never really understood why." "Seriously? Let's just say that the next best thing to having sex, is reading about people having sex. If you're not able to snag any for yourself, you damn sure want to be reading about two people who have guaranteed odds at doing the deed. — Lustful Desires Bundle

Remember that we are not gods who can fashion events to our desires. We are mere mortals who must learn not to contend with life but to yield to it. — Bette Bao Lord

As a sensitive person around other people, you feel their desires, you feel their angers, and you feel their frustrations. You begin to believe that these desires, angers, and frustrations are yours. — Frederick Lenz

Too often, we put up with mediocrity, telling ourselves that later in life we'll do what we want. — Daniel Willey

Water your dreams with the essence of love so it may nurture and grow beyond your vision and desires. — Truth Devour

The desires of your heart were not put there by accident. Follow them. — Mandy Hale

To rise above the conflicting desires of others, there must be no conflict about your own. — Stephen Richards

But the remarkable thing about the beetles was their sensitivity to all the grammar and directives and slogans and even unstated desires of the ant world, which they learned to manipulate. They first memorized the proper antenna-vibration and foreleg-tap which the ants themselves used to request food. The poor workers, busy going here and there and back again all day and never getting a chance to think, automatically assumed that these fearsome strangers had been authorized by the Central Committee since they knew the password, and so they regurgitated a drop or two of fruit juice on cue, much the same as when one is traveling across Europe or Asia on the train and a person in uniform requests one's passport, one's ticket, takes them away, and comes back, or else does not come back, having sold them; a badge and a superior manner can obtain anything in this world. — William T. Vollmann

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

You perceive, do you not, that our national fairy tales reflect the inmost desires of the Briton and the Gaul? — Rudyard Kipling

Communities don't think, don't believe, don't want, don't have needs, don't have interests and don't make decisions. Only individuals have minds that generate desires and needs - and only individuals can make choices and decisions. — Harry Browne

I believe that every one of us has something that's very unique to us specifically. Something unique enough that no one else might really ever understand it - not our parents, or teachers, or best friends, or siblings.
It's our point of view.
Our point of view is what makes us unique, because no one else - no one else - has your particular combination of thoughts, and dreams, and hopes, and desires, and ambitions and memories, and experiences. No one. And I believe that every once in a while, the Universe opens itself up to you and you alone, and shows you something that no one else is going to understand. And you have to decide in that moment how much you believe in what you have seen - even if everyone else in the world tells you you're wrong. — James A. Owen

The truth is women need men, we are neither superior nor inferior to men. We are better at some things and worse at other things. Mature people take the hard road and choose to delay quick gratification for true love. Mature people realize that the world does not revolve around them, and their desires, but around commitment. Mature people are committed to something beyond themselves; God, good, the good of society, family etc.
If men are the source of your problems, then you are doomed to wait for eternity for them to fix it. — Osayi Emokpae Lasisi