{ "type": "topic", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire", "heading": "Quotes about desire", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire.md", "quotes_count": 102, "authors_count": 63, "parent": null, "children": [ { "name": "ambition", "slug": "ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition", "heading": "Quotes about ambition" }, { "name": "greed", "slug": "greed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/greed", "heading": "Quotes about greed" }, { "name": "temptation", "slug": "temptation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/temptation", "heading": "Quotes about temptation" } ], "quotes": [ { "id": "4214efec-d366-43b1-a43a-c0042c3c0ada", "slug": "while-superfluity-engenders", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/giovanni-boccaccio/the-decameron/while-superfluity-engenders", "text": "While superfluity engenders disgust, appetite is but whetted when fruit is forbidden.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Giovanni Boccaccio", "slug": "giovanni-boccaccio", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/giovanni-boccaccio" }, "book": { "title": "The Decameron", "slug": "the-decameron", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/giovanni-boccaccio/the-decameron" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "temptation", "slug": "temptation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/temptation" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Giovanni_Boccaccio#The_Decameron_(c._1350)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T08:10:04" }, { "id": "9ee3608f-4fe3-402e-890b-4f38d447e006", "slug": "turnus-what-no-god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil/the-aeneid/turnus-what-no-god", "text": "Turnus, what no god\n\nWould dare to promise you—your heart's desire—\n\nThe course of time has of itself brought on.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Virgil", "slug": "virgil", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil" }, "book": { "title": "The Aeneid", "slug": "the-aeneid", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil/the-aeneid" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aeneid#Book_IX", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T08:09:59" }, { "id": "4df6942d-6af3-453b-ae20-b0a6b8e7aecd", "slug": "do-the-gods", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil/the-aeneid/do-the-gods", "text": "Do the gods light this fire in our hearts\n\nor does each man's mad desire become his god?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Virgil", "slug": "virgil", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil" }, "book": { "title": "The Aeneid", "slug": "the-aeneid", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/virgil/the-aeneid" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "passion", "slug": "passion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Virgil#Book_IX", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T08:09:55" }, { "id": "69ab1e0f-0b18-4da2-afce-7121d68f97da", "slug": "it-is-a-miserable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays/it-is-a-miserable", "text": "It is a miserable state of mind, to have few things to desire, and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of kings; who, being at the highest, want matter of desire, which makes their minds more languishing; and have many representations of perils and shadows, which makes their minds the less clear.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Francis Bacon", "slug": "francis-bacon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon" }, "book": { "title": "The Essays", "slug": "the-essays", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Essays_(Francis_Bacon)#Of_Empire", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:20" }, { "id": "6ac7fbcf-e068-4d44-9231-d7e4d27e4d25", "slug": "the-things-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-eisenstein/the-more-beautiful-world-our-hearts-know-is-possible/the-things-that", "text": "The things that we think we want are often substitutes for what we really want, and the pleasures we seek are less than the joy that they distract us from. From the normal vantage point, it certainly seems that only with discipline can we withstand the temptations that surround us: overeating, drugs, video games, mindless internet surfing, and everything else we consume. These things are undeniably destructive to our own lives and beyond; therefore, it would seem, we cannot always trust desire at all. But when we recognize that these are not really what we desire, our goal becomes not to suppress desire but to identify the true want or need, and to fulfill it. That is no trivial task; it is a profound path of self-realization.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Eisenstein", "slug": "charles-eisenstein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-eisenstein" }, "book": { "title": "The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible", "slug": "the-more-beautiful-world-our-hearts-know-is-possible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-eisenstein/the-more-beautiful-world-our-hearts-know-is-possible" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "joy", "slug": "joy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/joy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Eisenstein#The_More_Beautiful_World_Our_Hearts_Know_Is_Possible._The_Vision_and_Practice_of_Interbeing_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:10" }, { "id": "ebf657d8-d00c-46a1-b316-fcaf069330a2", "slug": "again-men-in-general", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/the-politics/again-men-in-general", "text": "Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "The Politics", "slug": "the-politics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/the-politics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:07" }, { "id": "5197bf34-1a43-404d-a5e7-ddd6ac17decb", "slug": "it-is-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/the-politics/it-is-of-the", "text": "It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "The Politics", "slug": "the-politics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/the-politics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:07" }, { "id": "89e74657-ccf7-4431-bce2-be6dc09e2cd7", "slug": "i-want-i-want-i", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carson-mccullers/the-heart-is-a-lonely-hunter/i-want-i-want-i", "text": "I want—I want—I want—was all that she could think about—but just what this real want was she did not know.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carson McCullers", "slug": "carson-mccullers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carson-mccullers" }, "book": { "title": "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", "slug": "the-heart-is-a-lonely-hunter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carson-mccullers/the-heart-is-a-lonely-hunter" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carson_McCullers#The_Heart_is_a_Lonely_Hunter_(1940)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:44" }, { "id": "1f8f9971-4485-4988-a5d3-770c109860ed", "slug": "the-greatest-obstacle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-greenblatt/the-swerve/the-greatest-obstacle", "text": "The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion. The principal enemies of human happiness are inordinate desire—the fantasy of attaining something that exceeds what the finite mortal world allows—and gnawing fear.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Greenblatt", "slug": "stephen-greenblatt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-greenblatt" }, "book": { "title": "The Swerve", "slug": "the-swerve", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-greenblatt/the-swerve" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Greenblatt#The_Lucretian_challenge", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:22" }, { "id": "32c69c8a-cfe9-4d82-995a-2ded46286903", "slug": "seven-years-she", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel/wolf-hall/seven-years-she", "text": "Seven years she schemed to be queen, and God protect us from answered prayers.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Hilary Mantel", "slug": "hilary-mantel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel" }, "book": { "title": "Wolf Hall", "slug": "wolf-hall", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hilary-mantel/wolf-hall" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 554, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "irony", "slug": "irony", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel#Wolf_Hall_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:20" }, { "id": "6512f1cc-c0aa-4c0b-8810-6c0f3acda456", "slug": "after-all-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/eric/after-all-the", "text": "After all, the whole point of the wish business was to see to it that what the client got was exactly what he asked for and exactly what he didn't really want. (pp. 83-84)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Eric", "slug": "eric", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/eric" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "irony", "slug": "irony", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:13" }, { "id": "f4664962-5fd5-469b-a0a7-5f4c102ff3d9", "slug": "everybody-has-some", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/a-wild-sheep-chase/everybody-has-some", "text": "“Everybody has some one thing they do not want to lose,\" began the man. \"You included. And we are professionals at finding out that very thing. Humans by necessity must have a midway point between their desires and their pride. Just as all objects must have a center of gravity. This is something we can pinpoint. Only when it is gone do people realize it even existed.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Haruki Murakami", "slug": "haruki-murakami", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami" }, "book": { "title": "A Wild Sheep Chase", "slug": "a-wild-sheep-chase", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/a-wild-sheep-chase" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "loss", "slug": "loss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loss" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "pride", "slug": "pride-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pride-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Wild_Sheep_Chase#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:19" }, { "id": "c6bf75b9-d8eb-4ede-9faa-1e83a5fb1fc8", "slug": "nothing-is-ever", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/m-k-hobson/the-hidden-goddess/nothing-is-ever", "text": "Nothing is ever what you want it to be. The harder you grab for it, the more deeply it cuts. And it mocks you for being foolish enough to reach for it at all. You come to fear touching anything at all, because you know that if you do, it will become terrible.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "M. K. Hobson", "slug": "m-k-hobson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/m-k-hobson" }, "book": { "title": "The Hidden Goddess", "slug": "the-hidden-goddess", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/m-k-hobson/the-hidden-goddess" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 310, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "disappointment", "slug": "disappointment", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/disappointment" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/M._K._Hobson#The_Hidden_Goddess_(2011)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:21" }, { "id": "33d7e44e-d9a3-4580-8e77-2e1c5bf1fdea", "slug": "cravings-are-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/the-power-of-now/cravings-are-the", "text": "Cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. p. 24", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "The Power of Now", "slug": "the-power-of-now", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/the-power-of-now" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Now#Chapter_1._You_Are_Not_Your_Mind", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:00" }, { "id": "941ebf1c-f8b0-4330-af0f-61323a06398c", "slug": "o-nly-the-sea", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/olive-schreiner/the-story-of-an-african-farm/o-nly-the-sea", "text": "“[O]nly the sea is like a human being . . .always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests; it is always wanting, wanting, wanting. It hurries on; and then it creeps back slowly without having reached, moaning. It is always asking a question and it never gets the answer.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Olive Schreiner", "slug": "olive-schreiner", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/olive-schreiner" }, "book": { "title": "The Story of an African Farm", "slug": "the-story-of-an-african-farm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/olive-schreiner/the-story-of-an-african-farm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "the sea", "slug": "the-sea", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-sea" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Olive_Schreiner#The_Story_of_an_African_Farm_(1883)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:50" }, { "id": "2049a040-6efd-4256-93d8-ef15009344e5", "slug": "death-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/death-is-the", "text": "\"Death is the mother of beauty,\" said Henry.\n\n\"And what is beauty?\"\n\n\"Terror.\"\n\n[...]\n\n\"And if beauty is terror,\" said Julian, \"then what is desire? We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?\"\n\n\"To live,\" said Camilla.\n\n\"To live forever,\" said Bunny, chin cupped in his palm.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Donna Tartt", "slug": "donna-tartt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt" }, "book": { "title": "The Secret History", "slug": "the-secret-history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 39, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Secret_History#Quotations", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:17" }, { "id": "8f56c53d-8341-4041-99cd-4b9c1442f05c", "slug": "but-for-half", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-rothfuss/the-slow-regard-of-silent-things/but-for-half", "text": "But for half a minute she wished it was a different sort of day, even though she knew that nothing good could come from wanting at the world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Patrick Rothfuss", "slug": "patrick-rothfuss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-rothfuss" }, "book": { "title": "The Slow Regard of Silent Things", "slug": "the-slow-regard-of-silent-things", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-rothfuss/the-slow-regard-of-silent-things" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 79, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "acceptance", "slug": "acceptance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/acceptance" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patrick_Rothfuss#The_Slow_Regard_of_Silent_Things_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:09" }, { "id": "cfa249aa-dd1e-4753-81ba-0fd77efeff7c", "slug": "at-times-it-seems", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/the-way-of-kings/at-times-it-seems", "text": "At times, it seems to me that to be human is to want that which we cannot have. For some, this is power. For me, it is peace.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "The Way of Kings", "slug": "the-way-of-kings", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/the-way-of-kings" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 853, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "peace of mind", "slug": "peace-of-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/peace-of-mind" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#The_Way_of_Kings_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:35" }, { "id": "f7a03a32-1698-4326-ad7d-aca7a4774620", "slug": "how-do-i-know", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/byron-katie/loving-what-is/how-do-i-know", "text": "How do I know that I don’t need what I want? I don’t have it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Byron Katie", "slug": "byron-katie", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/byron-katie" }, "book": { "title": "Loving What Is", "slug": "loving-what-is", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/byron-katie/loving-what-is" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Byron_Katie#Loving_What_Is:_Four_Questions_That_Can_Change_Your_Life_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:44" }, { "id": "05174ea6-8541-486c-8145-88e532cf35e6", "slug": "look-felicity-says", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/malcolm-bradbury/the-history-man/look-felicity-says", "text": "'Look, Felicity,' says Howard, 'there's only one rule. Follow the line of your own desires.'", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Malcolm Bradbury", "slug": "malcolm-bradbury", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/malcolm-bradbury" }, "book": { "title": "The History Man", "slug": "the-history-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/malcolm-bradbury/the-history-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 84, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Malcolm_Bradbury#The_History_Man_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:37" }, { "id": "6b8ca9a0-5c48-4bc6-8e4b-93572b8df9b2", "slug": "every-act-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dale-carnegie/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/every-act-you", "text": "Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something. How about the time you gave a large contribution to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception to the rule. You gave the Red Cross the donation because you wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a beautiful, unselfish, divine act.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Dale Carnegie", "slug": "dale-carnegie", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dale-carnegie" }, "book": { "title": "How to Win Friends and Influence People", "slug": "how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dale-carnegie/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 40, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "motivation", "slug": "motivation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/motivation" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie#How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People_(1936)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:08" }, { "id": "7199fb5d-5fda-4ecf-bf1a-c49772722ec3", "slug": "no-ego-can", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/no-ego-can", "text": "No ego can last for long without the need for more. Therefore, wanting keeps the ego alive much more than having. The ego wants to want more than it wants to have.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "ego", "slug": "ego", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ego" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_2,_Ego:_the_Current_State_of_Humanity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:02" }, { "id": "dfdc11f7-69d2-4935-a1c6-d8917c705f7d", "slug": "most-peoples-lives", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/most-peoples-lives", "text": "Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something, and thereby become diminished and be less. These two movements obscure the fact that being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already within you, now. (Ch 5)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:00" }, { "id": "28d370bd-5489-43b0-91bb-daa2742a7885", "slug": "how-wonderful-to-go-beyond", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/how-wonderful-to-go-beyond", "text": "How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything. (Ch 8)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "Stillness Speaks", "slug": "stillness-speaks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:00" }, { "id": "04c12283-efd1-4447-8b4c-ff926c24f0e7", "slug": "he-knew-exactly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/he-knew-exactly", "text": "He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you choose — not to need permission for desire — well now, that was freedom.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Toni Morrison", "slug": "toni-morrison", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison" }, "book": { "title": "Beloved", "slug": "beloved", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison#Beloved_(1987)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:01" }, { "id": "ee6de42a-1083-4754-9ce5-6a8417a96bd6", "slug": "the-cultivation-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/e-f-schumacher/small-is-beautiful/the-cultivation-and", "text": "The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace. Every increase of needs tends to increase one’s dependence on outside forces over which one cannot have control, and therefore increases existential fear. Only by a reduction of needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are the ultimate causes of strife and war.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "E. F. Schumacher", "slug": "e-f-schumacher", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/e-f-schumacher" }, "book": { "title": "Small Is Beautiful", "slug": "small-is-beautiful", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/e-f-schumacher/small-is-beautiful" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 31, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._F._Schumacher#Small_is_Beautiful:_A_Study_of_Economics_As_If_People_Mattered_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:51" }, { "id": "d8738218-1ba4-44d7-bdaa-2438639efedd", "slug": "what-i-wanted", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/invisible-monsters/what-i-wanted", "text": "What I wanted looked more and more like what I'd always been trained to want.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Chuck Palahniuk", "slug": "chuck-palahniuk", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk" }, "book": { "title": "Invisible Monsters", "slug": "invisible-monsters", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/invisible-monsters" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "conformity", "slug": "conformity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Invisible_Monsters#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:48" }, { "id": "b7b3e111-d7b4-48e0-96f0-6af6cada743f", "slug": "what-is-at-stake", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/what-is-at-stake", "text": "What is at stake here is precisely the problem of the fulfillment of desire: when we encounter in reality an object which has all the properties of the fantasized object of desire, we are nevertheless necessarily somewhat disappointed; we experience a certain this is not it; it becomes evident that the finally found real object is not the reference of desire even though it possesses all the required properties.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Slavoj Žižek", "slug": "slavoj-zizek", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek" }, "book": { "title": "The Sublime Object of Ideology", "slug": "the-sublime-object-of-ideology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "disappointment", "slug": "disappointment", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/disappointment" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek#The_Sublime_Object_of_Ideology_(1989)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:18" }, { "id": "2a1da082-463d-4337-8e18-8e89f4fd3524", "slug": "the-original-question", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-plague-of-fantasies/the-original-question", "text": "The original question of desire is not directly 'What do I want?', but 'What do others want from me? What do they see in me? What am I to others?'", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Slavoj Žižek", "slug": "slavoj-zizek", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek" }, "book": { "title": "The Plague of Fantasies", "slug": "the-plague-of-fantasies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-plague-of-fantasies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 9, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "identity", "slug": "identity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek#The_Plague_of_Fantasies_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:18" }, { "id": "29380c22-7af8-4be9-946a-e23a60aa67b8", "slug": "its-a-big", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/witches-abroad/its-a-big", "text": "It's a big responsibility, fairy godmothering. Knowing when to stop, I mean. People whose wishes get granted often don't turn out to be very nice people. So should you give them what—or what they need? (p. 10).", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Witches Abroad", "slug": "witches-abroad", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/witches-abroad" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "responsibility", "slug": "responsibility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Witches_Abroad#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:57" }, { "id": "b9af454d-c5e9-44e8-9e61-f9b9919e9501", "slug": "when-you-want", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho/the-alchemist/when-you-want", "text": "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Paulo Coelho", "slug": "paulo-coelho", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho" }, "book": { "title": "The Alchemist", "slug": "the-alchemist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho/the-alchemist" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 22, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "dreams and aspirations", "slug": "dreams-and-aspirations", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dreams-and-aspirations" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:32" }, { "id": "be69490e-e32b-47b2-8cba-e21404b0173b", "slug": "there-is-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho/the-alchemist/there-is-one", "text": "There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe.... The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Paulo Coelho", "slug": "paulo-coelho", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho" }, "book": { "title": "The Alchemist", "slug": "the-alchemist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paulo-coelho/the-alchemist" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 22, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho#The_Alchemist_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:31" }, { "id": "f3dc6a4e-035c-4dd6-8ad6-7048a5dfa646", "slug": "what-did-we-want", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers/you-shall-know-our-velocity/what-did-we-want", "text": "What did we want? We want the world smaller and bigger and just the same but advancing. We don’t know what we want.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Dave Eggers", "slug": "dave-eggers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers" }, "book": { "title": "You Shall Know Our Velocity", "slug": "you-shall-know-our-velocity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-eggers/you-shall-know-our-velocity" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dave_Eggers#You_Shall_Know_Our_Velocity!_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:52" }, { "id": "00322d95-cecc-40cd-a96d-3d9feb13401c", "slug": "could-it-be-he-wondered", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/flight-from-neveryon/could-it-be-he-wondered", "text": "Could it be, he wondered, he’d only thought he’d seen what he’d seen because of his own desires, researches, expectations?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Samuel R. Delany", "slug": "samuel-r-delany", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany" }, "book": { "title": "Flight from Neveryon", "slug": "flight-from-neveryon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/flight-from-neveryon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 117, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany#Flight_from_Nev%C3%A8r%C3%BFon_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:20" }, { "id": "190d50d7-0e96-49b9-9199-e04ee1ebc5b7", "slug": "maybe-the-things", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men/maybe-the-things", "text": "Maybe the things you want are like cards. You don't want them for themselves, really, though you think you do. You don't want a card because you want the card, but because in a perfectly arbitrary system of rules and values and in a special combination of which you already hold a part the card has meaning. Then, even if you do know the rules, a card doesn't mean a thing. They all look alike.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert Penn Warren", "slug": "robert-penn-warren", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren" }, "book": { "title": "All the King's Men", "slug": "all-the-kings-men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/All_the_King's_Men#Chapter_2", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:58" }, { "id": "13619be4-67e7-44d7-9287-17480fd2c6d1", "slug": "if-something-takes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men/if-something-takes", "text": "If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert Penn Warren", "slug": "robert-penn-warren", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren" }, "book": { "title": "All the King's Men", "slug": "all-the-kings-men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/All_the_King's_Men#Chapter_2", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:58" }, { "id": "f58bd09e-d290-4be4-b67b-b194d30079c1", "slug": "to-stop-a-human", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/xenocide/to-stop-a-human", "text": "To stop a human being from doing something, you must find a way to make this person stop wanting to do it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Orson Scott Card", "slug": "orson-scott-card", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card" }, "book": { "title": "Xenocide", "slug": "xenocide", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/xenocide" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "manipulation", "slug": "manipulation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/manipulation" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Xenocide#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:44" }, { "id": "9952d13d-8a68-4567-a8c4-7ab27b96b1ca", "slug": "i-desire-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-unabridged-journals-of-sylvia-plath/i-desire-the", "text": "I desire the things which will destroy me in the end.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sylvia Plath", "slug": "sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath" }, "book": { "title": "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath", "slug": "the-unabridged-journals-of-sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-unabridged-journals-of-sylvia-plath" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 63, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Unabridged_Journals_of_Sylvia_Plath_(2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:42" }, { "id": "51643d5e-b5ef-4355-8b5d-2707158d9ece", "slug": "perhaps-when-we-find", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-unabridged-journals-of-sylvia-plath/perhaps-when-we-find", "text": "Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sylvia Plath", "slug": "sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath" }, "book": { "title": "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath", "slug": "the-unabridged-journals-of-sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-unabridged-journals-of-sylvia-plath" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Unabridged_Journals_of_Sylvia_Plath_(2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:42" }, { "id": "11b64892-ed43-4e35-98d3-18e83500b2ac", "slug": "if-neurotic-is-wanting", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar/if-neurotic-is-wanting", "text": "If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sylvia Plath", "slug": "sylvia-plath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath" }, "book": { "title": "The Bell Jar", "slug": "the-bell-jar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sylvia-plath/the-bell-jar" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "uncertainty", "slug": "uncertainty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/uncertainty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath#The_Bell_Jar_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:41" }, { "id": "8651f689-1fdd-4d88-98a4-d1e0f0f891ad", "slug": "why-do-they", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/why-do-they", "text": "\"Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world—to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want. \"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ayn Rand", "slug": "ayn-rand", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand" }, "book": { "title": "The Fountainhead", "slug": "the-fountainhead", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 650, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "courage", "slug": "courage", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/courage" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Part_IV_(_Howard_Roark_)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:09" }, { "id": "425781a6-1988-4909-a851-ccca90f51f6b", "slug": "it-is-not-human", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-left-hand-of-darkness/it-is-not-human", "text": "It is not human to be without shame and without desire.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ursula K. Le Guin", "slug": "ursula-k-le-guin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin" }, "book": { "title": "The Left Hand of Darkness", "slug": "the-left-hand-of-darkness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-left-hand-of-darkness" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 177, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "shame", "slug": "shame", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/shame" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin#The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness_(1969)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:53" }, { "id": "b9ab90d0-48cf-479d-8ecd-6c154b81445c", "slug": "money-is-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged/money-is-only", "text": "\"Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ayn Rand", "slug": "ayn-rand", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand" }, "book": { "title": "Atlas Shrugged", "slug": "atlas-shrugged", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 411, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "money", "slug": "money", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged#Chapter_Two:_The_Aristocracy_of_Pull", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:51" }, { "id": "9fd550b5-4618-45f7-8635-b1aa559d8bc2", "slug": "who-knows-what", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/who-knows-what", "text": "Who knows what I want to do? Who knows what anyone wants to do? How can you be sure about something like that? Isn't it all a question of brain chemistry, signals going back and forth, electrical energy in the cortex? How do you know whether something is really what you want to do or just some kind of nerve impulse in the brain? Some minor little activity takes place somewhere in this unimportant place in one of the brain hemispheres and suddenly I want to go to Montana or I don't want to go to Montana. How do I know I really want to go and it isn't just some neurons firing or something? Maybe it's just an accidental flash in the medulla and suddenly there I am in Montana and I find out I really didn't want to go there in the first place. I can't control what happens in my brain, so how can I be sure what I want to do ten seconds from now, much less Montana next summer? It's all this activity in the brain and you don't know what's you as a person and what's some neuron that just happens to fire or just happens to misfire.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Don DeLillo", "slug": "don-delillo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo" }, "book": { "title": "White Noise", "slug": "white-noise", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "free will", "slug": "free-will", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/free-will" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo#White_Noise_(1984)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:39" }, { "id": "46e8f3dc-a55c-462e-98d9-eb37db2f0ffa", "slug": "every-disaster-made", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/every-disaster-made", "text": "Every disaster made us wish for something bigger, grander, more sweeping.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Don DeLillo", "slug": "don-delillo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo" }, "book": { "title": "White Noise", "slug": "white-noise", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo#White_Noise_(1984)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:38" }, { "id": "6930f93c-b093-4263-b999-465e8f62d159", "slug": "where-does-discontent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/sweet-thursday/where-does-discontent", "text": "Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the Bastard Time.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Steinbeck", "slug": "john-steinbeck", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck" }, "book": { "title": "Sweet Thursday", "slug": "sweet-thursday", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/sweet-thursday" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Sweet_Thursday_(1954)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:01" }, { "id": "f6a16d8d-ae3f-4d12-ab4b-db96dbd8914c", "slug": "for-it-is-said", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-pearl/for-it-is-said", "text": "For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Steinbeck", "slug": "john-steinbeck", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck" }, "book": { "title": "The Pearl", "slug": "the-pearl", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-pearl" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#The_Pearl_(1947)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:58" }, { "id": "f698e88c-114c-4b2d-9d02-bcced2d05535", "slug": "mostly-the-discontent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/the-way-to-love/mostly-the-discontent", "text": "Mostly the discontent that you feel comes from not having enough of something — you are dissatisfied because you think you do not have enough money or power or success or fame or virtue or love or holiness. This is not the discontent that leads to the joy of the kingdom. Its source is greed and ambition and its fruit is restlessness and frustration. The day you are discontented not because you want more of something but without knowing what it is you want; when you are sick at heart of everything you are pursuing so far and you are sick of the pursuing itself, then your heart will attain a great clarity, an insight that will cause you mysteriously to delight in everything and in nothing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Anthony De Mello", "slug": "anthony-de-mello", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello" }, "book": { "title": "The Way to Love", "slug": "the-way-to-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/the-way-to-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_de_Mello#The_Way_to_Love_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:48" }, { "id": "614ef8eb-4bb3-459a-b18f-5743b673abff", "slug": "it-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/the-way-to-love/it-is-the", "text": "It is the desire for \"the more\" that prevents clear thinking, whereas if we are discontent, not because we want something, but without knowing what we want; if we are dissatisfied with our jobs, with making money, with seeking position and power, with tradition, with what we have and with what we might have; if we are dissatisfied, not with anything in particular but with everything, then I think we shall find that our discontent brings clarity. When we don't accept or follow, but question, investigate, penetrate, there is an insight out of which comes creativity, joy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Anthony De Mello", "slug": "anthony-de-mello", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello" }, "book": { "title": "The Way to Love", "slug": "the-way-to-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/the-way-to-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_de_Mello#The_Way_to_Love_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:48" }, { "id": "65f82a91-fdba-4ba8-9887-5c61a7076f94", "slug": "i-had-learned", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/friday/i-had-learned", "text": "I had learned lately that wanting something and being able to pay for it were not the same.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert A. Heinlein", "slug": "robert-a-heinlein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein" }, "book": { "title": "Friday", "slug": "friday", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/friday" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 286, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "money", "slug": "money", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein#Friday_(1982)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:02" }, { "id": "7268d061-ec0c-490c-9215-8372ee186fc4", "slug": "you-must-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/demian/you-must-not", "text": "\"You must not give way to desires which you don't believe in. I know what you desire. You should, however, either be capable of renouncing these desires or feel wholly justified in having them. Once you are able to make your request in such a way that you will be quite certain of its fulfillment, then the fulfillment will come. But at present you alternate between desire and renunciation and are afraid all the time. All that must be overcome.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Hermann Hesse", "slug": "hermann-hesse", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse" }, "book": { "title": "Demian", "slug": "demian", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hermann-hesse/demian" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse#Demian_(1919)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:47" }, { "id": "a45f822c-9105-4f65-8c2c-1a7f30086b79", "slug": "there-is-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle/there-is-one", "text": "There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Upton Sinclair", "slug": "upton-sinclair", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair" }, "book": { "title": "The Jungle", "slug": "the-jungle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/upton-sinclair/the-jungle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "poverty", "slug": "poverty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poverty" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "prison", "slug": "prison", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prison" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Jungle_(novel)#Chapter_27", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:44" }, { "id": "707045a5-211f-43e6-9924-452ffacd74ab", "slug": "strong-deeply-rooted", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/napoleon-hill/the-law-of-success/strong-deeply-rooted", "text": "Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement. Just as the electron is the last unit of matter discernible to the scientist. DESIRE is the seed of all achievement; the starting place, back of which there is nothing, or at least there is nothing of which we have any knowledge.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Napoleon Hill", "slug": "napoleon-hill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/napoleon-hill" }, "book": { "title": "The Law of Success", "slug": "the-law-of-success", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/napoleon-hill/the-law-of-success" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 109, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "success and failure", "slug": "success-and-failure", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/success-and-failure" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Napoleon_Hill#The_Law_of_Success_(1928)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:17" }, { "id": "ea6362d1-38e0-41ac-9a84-36f6da977e2d", "slug": "felicity-is-a-continual", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan/felicity-is-a-continual", "text": "Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.The cause whereof is that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life, and differ only in the way, which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in diverse men, and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Hobbes", "slug": "thomas-hobbes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan", "slug": "leviathan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 47, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Chapter_11", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:47" }, { "id": "88411aa6-741b-4a69-b6a3-aecc1ff44b26", "slug": "for-there-is-no-such", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan/for-there-is-no-such", "text": "For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquility of mind, while we live here; because Life it selfe is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Hobbes", "slug": "thomas-hobbes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan", "slug": "leviathan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 29, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "peace of mind", "slug": "peace-of-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/peace-of-mind" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Chapter_6", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:47" }, { "id": "4971c4c4-f9b6-44a9-a41b-d463c8a412eb", "slug": "so-that-in-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan/so-that-in-the", "text": "So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Hobbes", "slug": "thomas-hobbes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan", "slug": "leviathan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 47, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Chapter_11", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:47" }, { "id": "0cdc9d63-ac24-40e3-8b2b-1d5a35973285", "slug": "by-manners-i-mean", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan/by-manners-i-mean", "text": "By MANNERS, I mean not here Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of mankind that concern their living together in Peace and Unity. To which end we are to consider that the Felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis ultimus (utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old Moral Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live whose desires are at an end than he whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Hobbes", "slug": "thomas-hobbes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan", "slug": "leviathan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 47, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Chapter_11", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:47" }, { "id": "4f2d1767-145b-4c36-98e0-de0d2eba7e0e", "slug": "only-he-who", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/confessions-of-felix-krull-confidence-man/only-he-who", "text": "Only he who desires is amiable and not he who is satiated.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Mann", "slug": "thomas-mann", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann" }, "book": { "title": "Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man", "slug": "confessions-of-felix-krull-confidence-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/confessions-of-felix-krull-confidence-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann#Confessions_of_Felix_Krull,_Confidence_Man_(1954)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:17" }, { "id": "080035db-057a-4e45-af0d-74845b569e5f", "slug": "wanting-to-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/earthborn/wanting-to-is-the", "text": "Wanting to is the whole lesson; all the rest is practice.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Orson Scott Card", "slug": "orson-scott-card", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card" }, "book": { "title": "Earthborn", "slug": "earthborn", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/earthborn" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "perseverance", "slug": "perseverance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/perseverance" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Earthborn_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:11" }, { "id": "68619d38-9c1b-4abe-b8d6-211b207bbb7c", "slug": "desire-is-creation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/the-professors-house/desire-is-creation", "text": "Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Willa Cather", "slug": "willa-cather", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather" }, "book": { "title": "The Professor's House", "slug": "the-professors-house", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/the-professors-house" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ambition", "slug": "ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willa_Cather#The_Professor's_House_(1925)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:03" }, { "id": "66cf0725-14de-4d9d-82ab-7b96be9e1149", "slug": "in-other-searchings", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy/in-other-searchings", "text": "In other searchings it might be the object of the quest that brought satisfaction, or it might be something incidental that one got on the way; but in religion, desire was fulfilment, it was the seeking itself that rewarded.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Willa Cather", "slug": "willa-cather", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather" }, "book": { "title": "My Mortal Enemy", "slug": "my-mortal-enemy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willa_Cather#My_Mortal_Enemy_(1926)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:03" }, { "id": "95ca044d-3187-4c7e-a24c-a119aed04992", "slug": "nothing-is-far", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/the-song-of-the-lark/nothing-is-far", "text": "Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Willa Cather", "slug": "willa-cather", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather" }, "book": { "title": "The Song Of The Lark", "slug": "the-song-of-the-lark", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/the-song-of-the-lark" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willa_Cather#The_Song_of_the_Lark_(1915)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:02" }, { "id": "7aef5bac-6129-4cda-900a-61eff7a82e8e", "slug": "when-we-look", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/the-song-of-the-lark/when-we-look", "text": "When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Willa Cather", "slug": "willa-cather", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather" }, "book": { "title": "The Song Of The Lark", "slug": "the-song-of-the-lark", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/the-song-of-the-lark" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "youth", "slug": "youth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/youth" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willa_Cather#The_Song_of_the_Lark_(1915)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:02" }, { "id": "2e9b4eed-50df-49de-9d3b-9438bde90bef", "slug": "bastian-had-shown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende/the-neverending-story/bastian-had-shown", "text": "Bastian had shown the lion the inscription on the reverse side of the Gem. \"What do you suppose it means?\" he asked. \"'DO WHAT YOU WISH.' That must mean I can do anything I feel like. Don't you think so?\"\n\nAll at once Grograman's face looked alarmingly grave, and his eyes glowed.\n\n\"No,\" he said in his deep, rumbling voice. \"It means that you must do what you really and truly want. And nothing is more difficult.\"\n\n\"What I really and truly want? What do you mean by that?\"\n\n\"It's your own deepest secret and you yourself don't know it.\"\n\n\"How can I find out?\"\n\n\"By going the way of your wishes, from one to another, from first to last. It will take you to what you really and truly want.\"\n\n\"That doesn't sound so hard,\" said Bastian.\n\n\"It is the most dangerous of all journeys.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Bastian asked. \"I'm not afraid.\"\n\n\"That isn't it,\" Grograman rumbled. \"It requires the greatest honesty and vigilance, because there's no other journey on which it's so easy to lose yourself forever.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Ende", "slug": "michael-ende", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende" }, "book": { "title": "The Neverending Story", "slug": "the-neverending-story", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende/the-neverending-story" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:56" }, { "id": "7c698da4-9a80-4f4a-b817-a18bbcb8a9c1", "slug": "the-indispensible-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world-revisited/the-indispensible-is-not", "text": "The indispensible is not necessarily the desirable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldous Huxley", "slug": "aldous-huxley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley" }, "book": { "title": "Brave New World Revisited", "slug": "brave-new-world-revisited", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world-revisited" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 48, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley#Brave_New_World_Revisited_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:37" }, { "id": "e47d0f02-0705-4ebe-b896-67e3b255cb62", "slug": "all-that-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/the-doors-of-perception/all-that-the", "text": "All that the conscious ego can do is to formulate wishes, which are then carried out by forces which it controls very little and understands not at all.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldous Huxley", "slug": "aldous-huxley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley" }, "book": { "title": "The Doors of Perception", "slug": "the-doors-of-perception", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/the-doors-of-perception" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley#The_Doors_of_Perception_(1954)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:36" }, { "id": "1a71611c-802f-4be5-8582-179f8c2afb72", "slug": "impulse-arrested-spills", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world/impulse-arrested-spills", "text": "Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier. The unchecked stream flows smoothly down its appointed channels into a calm well-being. (The embryo is hungry; day in, day out, the blood-surrogate pump unceasingly turns its eight hundred revolutions a minute. The decanted infant howls; at once a nurse appears with a bottle of external secretion. Feeling lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation. Shorten that interval, break down all those old unnecessary barriers.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldous Huxley", "slug": "aldous-huxley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley" }, "book": { "title": "Brave New World", "slug": "brave-new-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Chapter_3", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:34" }, { "id": "d70f2ff8-9ed1-4341-a5df-54d04e7f1756", "slug": "offer-them-what", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/on-the-road/offer-them-what", "text": "Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic-stricken.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jack Kerouac", "slug": "jack-kerouac", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac" }, "book": { "title": "On the Road", "slug": "on-the-road", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-kerouac/on-the-road" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_the_Road#Part_three", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:30" }, { "id": "1daa6e27-f28c-4359-b02f-f6dcebc941a1", "slug": "seek-freedom-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/chapterhouse-dune/seek-freedom-and", "text": "Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Chapterhouse: Dune", "slug": "chapterhouse-dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/chapterhouse-dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "self-control", "slug": "self-control", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-control" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Chapterhouse:_Dune_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:55" }, { "id": "548b7590-1d5f-4580-b1b6-6d63029dcef8", "slug": "the-fremen-were", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune/the-fremen-were", "text": "The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called \"spannungsbogen\" — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Dune", "slug": "dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "patience", "slug": "patience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/patience" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "self-control", "slug": "self-control", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-control" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Book_2:_Muad'Dib", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:49" }, { "id": "5c14f3f8-a174-4329-bb5c-43c03c8d6c57", "slug": "relativity-does-set", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos/relativity-does-set", "text": "Relativity does set limits on what humans can ultimately do. But the universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human aspirations.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos", "slug": "cosmos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 201, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Cosmos_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:27" }, { "id": "77f74321-367b-4f8f-9a43-89b056f8f302", "slug": "let-folly-be-our", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-r-r-tolkien/the-fellowship-of-the-ring/let-folly-be-our", "text": "Let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "J. R. R. Tolkien", "slug": "j-r-r-tolkien", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-r-r-tolkien" }, "book": { "title": "The Fellowship of the Ring", "slug": "the-fellowship-of-the-ring", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-r-r-tolkien/the-fellowship-of-the-ring" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring#The_Council_of_Elrond", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:21" }, { "id": "1cc3fa89-5f59-4e60-86aa-5fe4aabfd6fb", "slug": "i-dont-want", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman/coraline/i-dont-want", "text": "I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Neil Gaiman", "slug": "neil-gaiman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman" }, "book": { "title": "Coraline", "slug": "coraline", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman/coraline" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman#Coraline_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:11" }, { "id": "7399f4f9-8dbd-49c5-96dd-53029ba78ebc", "slug": "man-is-no-star", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-herbert/the-temple/man-is-no-star", "text": "Man is no star, but a quick coal\n\nOf mortal fire:\n\nWho blows it not, nor doth control\n\nA faint desire,\n\nLets his own ashes choke his soul.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George Herbert", "slug": "george-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "The Temple", "slug": "the-temple", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-herbert/the-temple" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "soul", "slug": "soul", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/soul" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Herbert#The_Temple_(1633)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:00" }, { "id": "25f8de98-16a9-449f-a094-a8340229fee4", "slug": "it-seems-to", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/the-mill-on-the-floss/it-seems-to", "text": "It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George Eliot", "slug": "george-eliot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot" }, "book": { "title": "The Mill on the Floss", "slug": "the-mill-on-the-floss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/the-mill-on-the-floss" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "longing", "slug": "longing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/longing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Eliot#The_Mill_on_the_Floss_(1860)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:50" }, { "id": "d533d7fe-f197-471b-9d82-b2b32ef460ef", "slug": "once-we-begin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/once-we-begin", "text": "Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "evil", "slug": "evil", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evil" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:42" }, { "id": "34d22025-40eb-4876-a4ca-6c9312432ae4", "slug": "it-is-trifling", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born/it-is-trifling", "text": "It is trifling to believe in what you do or in what others do. You should avoid simulacra and even \"realities\"; you should take up a position external to everything and everyone, drive off or grind down your appetites, live, according to a Hindu adage, with as few desires as a \"solitary elephant.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble With Being Born", "slug": "the-trouble-with-being-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/the-trouble-with-being-born" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#The_Trouble_With_Being_Born_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:42" }, { "id": "c318d5eb-d3a7-4802-b5f4-ab3d566ab228", "slug": "i-dream-of-wanting", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay/i-dream-of-wanting", "text": "I dream of wanting — and all I want seems to me worthless.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emil Cioran", "slug": "emil-cioran", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran" }, "book": { "title": "A Short History of Decay", "slug": "a-short-history-of-decay", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "emptiness", "slug": "emptiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emptiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#A_Short_History_of_Decay_(1949)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:40" }, { "id": "7fb2d066-096c-45ca-aeec-fe6e43c9a09a", "slug": "i-have-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/i-have-only", "text": "I have only one rule to give you which sums up all the rest. Be a man; restrain your heart within the limits of your manhood. Study and know these limits; however narrow they may be, we are not unhappy within them; it is only when we wish to go beyond them that we are unhappy, only when, in our mad passions, we try to attain the impossible; we are unhappy when we forget our manhood to make an imaginary world for ourselves, from which we are always slipping back into our own. The only good things, whose loss really affects us, are those which we claim as our rights. If it is clear that we cannot obtain what we want, our mind turns away from it; wishes without hope cease to torture us. A beggar is not tormented by a desire to be a king; a king only wishes to be a god when he thinks himself more than man.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "moderation", "slug": "moderation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/moderation" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_V", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:38" }, { "id": "948152e4-9f62-42b6-8d7b-c42422903a00", "slug": "let-us-give", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/let-us-give", "text": "Let us give him everything. Let us lavish charms and merit on him. Let him be handsome, very clever, and lovable. He will be sought out by women. But in seeking him out before he loves them, they will unhinge him rather than make a lover out of him. He will have successes, but he will have neither transports nor passion for enjoying them. Since his desires, always provided for in advance, never have time to be born, he feels in the bosom of pleasures only the boredom of constraint.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "boredom", "slug": "boredom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/boredom" }, { "name": "seduction", "slug": "seduction", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/seduction" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_IV", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:33" }, { "id": "c65c225e-fffd-4ecb-9b96-a80e9e5c10a2", "slug": "nature-provides-for", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/nature-provides-for", "text": "Nature provides for the child's growth in her own fashion, and this should never be thwarted. Do not make him sit still when he wants to run about, nor run when he wants to be quiet. If we did not spoil our children's wills by our blunders their desires would be free from caprice. Let them run, jump, and shout to their heart's content. All their own activities are instincts of the body for its growth in strength; but you should regard with suspicion those wishes which they cannot carry out for themselves, those which others must carry out for them. Then you must distinguish carefully between natural and artificial needs, between the needs of budding caprice and the needs which spring from the overflowing life just described.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "children", "slug": "children", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "upbringing", "slug": "upbringing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/upbringing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_II", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:31" }, { "id": "1f5ce57b-8ed1-4c7a-93dc-11d5b4b7725e", "slug": "every-feeling-of-hardship", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/every-feeling-of-hardship", "text": "Every feeling of hardship is inseparable from the desire to escape from it; every idea of pleasure from the desire to enjoy it. All desire implies a want, and all wants are painful; hence our wretchedness consists in the disproportion between our desires and our powers. A conscious being whose powers were equal to his desires would be perfectly happy. What then is human wisdom? Where is the path of true happiness? The mere limitation of our desires is not enough, for if they were less than our powers, part of our faculties would be idle, and we should not enjoy our whole being; neither is the mere extension of our powers enough, for if our desires were also increased we should only be the more miserable. True happiness consists in decreasing the difference between our desires and our powers, in establishing a perfect equilibrium between the power and the will. Then only, when all its forces are employed, will the soul be at rest and man will find himself in his true position.\n\nIt is only in this primitive condition that we find the equilibrium between desire and power, and then alone man is not unhappy. As soon as his potential powers of mind begin to function, imagination, more powerful than all the rest, awakes, and precedes all the rest. It is imagination which enlarges the bounds of possibility for us, whether for good or ill, and therefore stimulates and feeds desires by the hope of satisfying them. But the object which seemed within our grasp flies quicker than we can follow; when we think we have grasped it, it transforms itself and is again far ahead of us. We no longer perceive the country we have traversed, and we think nothing of it; that which lies before us becomes vaster and stretches still before us. Thus we exhaust our strength, yet never reach our goal, and the nearer we are to pleasure, the further we are from happiness.\n\nThe world of reality has its bounds, the world of imagination is boundless; as we cannot enlarge the one, let us restrict the other; for all the sufferings which really make us miserable arise from the difference between the real and the imaginary. Health, strength, and a good conscience excepted, all the good things of life are a matter of opinion; except bodily suffering and remorse, all our woes are imaginary. You will tell me this is a commonplace; I admit it, but its practical application is no commonplace, and it is with practice only that we are now concerned.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_II", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:31" }, { "id": "053b8503-9e93-47f0-ae2e-c88933e289a1", "slug": "the-other-animals", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/the-other-animals", "text": "The other animals possess only such powers as are required for self-preservation; man alone has more. Is it not very strange that this superfluity should make him miserable? In every land a man's labour yields more than a bare living. If he were wise enough to disregard this surplus he would always have enough, for he would never have too much. \"Great needs,\" said Favorin, \"spring from great wealth; and often the best way of getting what we want is to get rid of what we have.\" By striving to increase our happiness we change it into wretchedness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "wealth", "slug": "wealth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wealth" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_II", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:31" }, { "id": "ce62459b-95f6-450a-a155-2b1ce0b0f0ee", "slug": "there-is-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/there-is-only", "text": "There is only one man who gets his own way—he who can get it single-handed; therefore freedom, not power, is the greatest good. That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires. This is my fundamental maxim. Apply it to childhood, and all the rules of education spring from it. Society has enfeebled man, not merely by robbing him of the right to his own strength, but still more by making his strength insufficient for his needs. This is why his desires increase in proportion to his weakness; and this is why the child is weaker than the man. If a man is strong and a child is weak it is not because the strength of the one is absolutely greater than the strength of the other, but because the one can naturally provide for himself and the other cannot. Thus the man will have more desires and the child more caprices, a word which means, I take it, desires which are not true needs, desires which can only be satisfied with the help of others.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "children", "slug": "children", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#Book_II", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:30" }, { "id": "b49d7e94-fde7-406d-804f-da14bec3efe1", "slug": "when-you-reached", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/when-you-reached", "text": "When you reached the age of reason, I secured you from the influence of human prejudice; when your heart awoke I preserved you from the sway of passion. Had I been able to prolong this inner tranquillity till your life's end, my work would have been secure, and you would have been as happy as man can be; but, my dear Emile, in vain did I dip you in the waters of Styx, I could not make you everywhere invulnerable; a fresh enemy has appeared, whom you have not yet learnt to conquer, and from whom I cannot save you. That enemy is yourself. Nature and fortune had left you free. You could face poverty, you could bear bodily pain; the sufferings of the heart were unknown to you; you were then dependent on nothing but your position as a human being; now you depend on all the ties you have formed for yourself; you have learnt to desire, and you are now the slave of your desires. Without any change in yourself, without any insult, any injury to yourself, what sorrows may attack your soul, what pains may you suffer without sickness, how many deaths may you die and yet live! A lie, an error, a suspicion, may plunge you in despair.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau#Book_V", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:30" }, { "id": "cdaeafb4-cf1d-4293-b6cd-dd9343a94c63", "slug": "it-was-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/niccolo-machiavelli/discourses-on-livy/it-was-the", "text": "It was the verdict of ancient writers that men afflict themselves in evil and weary themselves in the good, and that the same effects result from both of these passions. For whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Niccolo Machiavelli", "slug": "niccolo-machiavelli", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/niccolo-machiavelli" }, "book": { "title": "Discourses on Livy", "slug": "discourses-on-livy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/niccolo-machiavelli/discourses-on-livy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "war", "slug": "war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war" }, { "name": "ambition", "slug": "ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli#Discourses_on_Livy_(1517)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:24" }, { "id": "d2770dd2-341f-461c-9569-7eaa75d5a7ae", "slug": "an-eternal-purgatory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/an-eternal-purgatory", "text": "An eternal purgatory, then, rather than a heaven of glory; an eternal ascent. If there is an end to all suffering, however pure and spiritualized we may suppose it to be, if there is an end to all desire, what is it that makes the blessed in paradise go on living? If in paradise they do not suffer for want of God, how shall they love Him? And if there, in the heaven of glory, while they behold God little by little and closer and closer, yet without ever wholly attaining Him, there does not always remain something more for them to know and desire, if there does not always remain a substratum of doubt, how shall they not fall asleep?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "life after death", "slug": "life-after-death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life-after-death" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#X_:_Religion,_the_Mythology_of_the_Beyond_and_the_Apocatastasis", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:23" }, { "id": "36e2e146-8aa1-4df8-bb53-36b55fe49a9b", "slug": "and-the-soul", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/and-the-soul", "text": "And the soul, my soul at least, longs for something else, not absorption, not quietude, not peace, not appeasement, it longs ever to approach and never to arrive, it longs for the never-ending longing, for an eternal hope which is eternally renewed but never wholly fulfilled. And together with all this, it longs for an eternal lack of something and an eternal suffering. A suffering, a pain, thanks to which it grows without ceasing in consciousness and longing. Do not write upon the gate of heaven that sentence which Dante placed over the threshold of hell, Lasciate ogni speranza! [Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate: All hope abandon, ye who enter in] Do not destroy time!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "hope", "slug": "hope", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope" }, { "name": "soul", "slug": "soul", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/soul" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#X_:_Religion,_the_Mythology_of_the_Beyond_and_the_Apocatastasis", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:23" }, { "id": "a25e1e33-26da-429b-8889-7013e3885464", "slug": "consciousness-the-craving", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/consciousness-the-craving", "text": "Consciousness, the craving for more, more, always more, hunger of eternity and thirst of infinity, appetite for God — these are never satisfied. Each consciousness seeks to be itself and all other consciousnesses without ceasing to be itself; it seeks to be God. And matter, unconsciousness, tends to be less and less, tends to be nothing, its thirst being a thirst for repose. Spirit says: I wish to be! and matter answers: I wish not to be!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "consciousness", "slug": "consciousness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/consciousness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#IX_:_Faith,_Hope,_and_Charity", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:22" }, { "id": "088d914e-d5bd-48a3-8b90-50ae5185d945", "slug": "is-there-anything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/burmese-days/is-there-anything", "text": "Is there anything in the world more graceless, more dishonouring, than to desire a woman whom you will never have?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George Orwell", "slug": "george-orwell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell" }, "book": { "title": "Burmese Days", "slug": "burmese-days", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/burmese-days" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "passion", "slug": "passion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Burmese_Days_(1934)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:09" }, { "id": "687d0f5b-8bc4-439c-9ec5-c928bf044639", "slug": "i-try-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernest-hemingway/the-sun-also-rises/i-try-and", "text": "I try and play it along and just not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have had any trouble if I hadn't run into Brett when they shipped me to England. I suppose she only wanted what she couldn't have.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ernest Hemingway", "slug": "ernest-hemingway", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernest-hemingway" }, "book": { "title": "The Sun Also Rises", "slug": "the-sun-also-rises", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernest-hemingway/the-sun-also-rises" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway#The_Sun_Also_Rises_(1926)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:03" }, { "id": "376859a6-1561-42cc-8194-69feb96a9bf9", "slug": "resignation-is-never", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice/resignation-is-never", "text": "\". . . resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jane Austen", "slug": "jane-austen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen" }, "book": { "title": "Pride and Prejudice", "slug": "pride-and-prejudice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "acceptance", "slug": "acceptance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/acceptance" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice#Chapters_11-20", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:52" }, { "id": "ca7b0a48-23a9-4a92-88ef-5acc5b70d8da", "slug": "i-want-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/fear-of-flying/i-want-you", "text": "I want you. I want you. I want you. Anything to avoid saying: I love you.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Erica Jong", "slug": "erica-jong", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong" }, "book": { "title": "Fear of Flying", "slug": "fear-of-flying", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/fear-of-flying" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erica_Jong#Fear_of_Flying_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:39" }, { "id": "668fa7dd-4a75-4713-bee0-c0dc37abaac7", "slug": "underneath-it-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/fear-of-flying/underneath-it-all", "text": "Underneath it all, you longed to be annihilated by love...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Erica Jong", "slug": "erica-jong", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong" }, "book": { "title": "Fear of Flying", "slug": "fear-of-flying", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/erica-jong/fear-of-flying" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erica_Jong#Fear_of_Flying_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:39" }, { "id": "3fea8eac-4905-4d10-a069-e2a413cdae6c", "slug": "some-say-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-frost/new-hampshire/some-say-the", "text": "Some say the world will end in fire,\n\nSome say in ice.\n\nFrom what I've tasted of desire\n\nI hold with those who favor fire.\n\nBut if it had to perish twice,\n\nI think I know enough of hate\n\nTo say that for destruction ice\n\nIs also great\n\nAnd would suffice.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert Frost", "slug": "robert-frost", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-frost" }, "book": { "title": "New Hampshire", "slug": "new-hampshire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-frost/new-hampshire" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "hatred", "slug": "hatred", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hatred" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Frost#New_Hampshire_(1923)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:37" }, { "id": "07be6dd3-2857-4933-b542-a9eb269fd56c", "slug": "she-told-me-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/equal-rites/she-told-me-that", "text": "She told me that if magic gives people what they want, then not using magic can give them what they need.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Equal Rites", "slug": "equal-rites", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/equal-rites" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" }, { "name": "magic", "slug": "magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/magic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Equal_Rites#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:27" }, { "id": "4e54ff7f-6517-4053-a3af-5a585021f4e6", "slug": "im-crazy-enough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-miller/the-colossus-of-maroussi/im-crazy-enough", "text": "I'm crazy enough to believe that the happiest man on earth is the man with the fewest needs.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henry Miller", "slug": "henry-miller", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-miller" }, "book": { "title": "The Colossus of Maroussi", "slug": "the-colossus-of-maroussi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-miller/the-colossus-of-maroussi" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 133, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Miller#The_Colossus_of_Maroussi_(1941)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:13" }, { "id": "9860e747-e59f-419e-9f97-9daa3c3be549", "slug": "at-the-times", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/andy-warhol/the-philosophy-of-andy-warhol/at-the-times", "text": "At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't find any takers so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone. The moment I decided I'd rather be alone and not have anyone telling me their problems, everybody I'd never even seen before in my life started running after me to tell me things I'd just decided I didn't think it was a good idea to hear about. As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, that's when I got what you might call a \"following.\" As soon as you stop wanting something you get it. I've found that to be absolutely axiomatic.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Andy Warhol", "slug": "andy-warhol", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/andy-warhol" }, "book": { "title": "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol", "slug": "the-philosophy-of-andy-warhol", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/andy-warhol/the-philosophy-of-andy-warhol" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "loneliness", "slug": "loneliness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#The_Philosophy_of_Andy_Warhol_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:11" }, { "id": "7e78203c-438a-4325-ad72-e32ee00ce41a", "slug": "he-would-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal/he-would-have", "text": "He would have given up everything -- education, comfort, luxurious life and his powerful position as manager -- if only just for one day he could have been the humblest of these poor devils under him and be free with his own body and be oafish enough to beat his wife and take his pleasure with the wives of his neighbors. He found himself wishing he were dying of starvation too, and that his empty belly were twisted with pains that made his brain reel, for perhaps that might deaden this relentless grief! Oh to live like a brute, possessing nothing but freedom to roam in the cornfields with the ugliest and most revolting haulage girl and possess her!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emile Zola", "slug": "emile-zola", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola" }, "book": { "title": "Germinal", "slug": "germinal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Zola#Germinal_(1885)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:11" }, { "id": "0e8682d8-e532-462b-96e8-f2479d460073", "slug": "the-only-ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/therese-raquin/the-only-ambition", "text": "The only ambition of this great powerful frame was to do nothing, to grovel in idleness and satiation from hour to hour. He wanted to eat well, sleep well, to abundantly satisfy his passions, without moving from his place, without running the risk of the slightest fatigue.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emile Zola", "slug": "emile-zola", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola" }, "book": { "title": "Thérèse Raquin", "slug": "therese-raquin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/therese-raquin" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Zola#Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Raquin_(1867%3B_1868)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:10" }, { "id": "b1f9089d-86d9-4880-986f-91c680ede1c0", "slug": "he-had-discovered", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer/he-had-discovered", "text": "He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mark Twain", "slug": "mark-twain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain" }, "book": { "title": "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "slug": "the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 32, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain#The_Adventures_of_Tom_Sawyer_(1876)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:45" }, { "id": "51b6fd55-7a7a-4cff-8e73-1de617bc68b7", "slug": "to-promise-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer/to-promise-not", "text": "To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mark Twain", "slug": "mark-twain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain" }, "book": { "title": "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "slug": "the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "desire", "slug": "desire", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/desire" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain#The_Adventures_of_Tom_Sawyer_(1876)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:45" } ] }