This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Our belief in truth itself.. that there is a truth, and that our minds and it are made for each other, what is it but a passionate affirmation of desire, in which our social system backs us up? We want to have a truth; we want to believe that our experiments and studies and discussions must put us in a continually better and better position towards it; and on this line we agree to fight out our thinking lives." - William James
"The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them." - Juan Ramón Jimenez, fully Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón
"The attachment is the killer, not the desire. You can desire something and, when you're through with it, detach yourself from it, and it doesn't hurt. It's the attachment that hurts." - John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL
"Measure yourself by your best moments, not by your worst. We are too prone to judge ourselves by our moments of despondency and depression. We have all felt the desire, at times almost victorious desire, to get away from everything and retire into a cottage in the wilderness. But we don't do it, because we are better men and women than we think we are." - Robert Willard Johnson
"Wealth is nothing in itself, it is not useful but when it departs from us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase, which, if we suppose it put to its best use by those that posses it, seems not much to deserve the desire or envy of a wise man. It is certain that, with regard to corporal enjoyment, money can neither open new avenues to pleasure, nor block up the passages to anguish. Disease and infirmity still continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury, or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely been observed, that wealth contributes much to quicken the discernment, enlarge the capacity, or elevate the imagination; but may, by hiring flattery, or laying diligence asleep, confirm error, and harden stupidity." -
"A person who is truly in control of his desires is able to separate himself from any desire he chooses." - Ya’akov Dov "Katzele" Katz
"It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel towards our distant goal." - Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor
"A person who performs good deeds because he wants to fulfill the Almighty’s wishes will be happy if he hears others are doing even more than him. If, however, one feels pain when hearing others have accomplished more than him in spiritual matters, it shows he is basically motivated by desire for personal aggrandizement." -
"Reality comes into being only when the mind is still, not made still. Therefore, there must be no disciplining of the mind to be still. When you discipline yourself, it is merely a projected desire to be in a particular state. Such a state is not the state of passivity... Liberation is from moment to moment in the understanding of what is, when the mind is free, not made free. It is only a free mind that can discover, not a mind molded by a belief or shaped according to a hypothesis. Such a mind cannot discover. There can be no freedom is there is conflict, for conflict is the fixing of the self in relationship." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Every desire for power, ability, wisdom, harmony, life, greatness will impress itself upon the subconscious and will cause the thing desired to be produced in the great within. What is produced in the within will come forth into expression in the personality; therefore, by knowing how to impress the subconscious, man may give his personal self any quality desired, in any quantity desired. What man may desire to become, that he can become, and the art of directing and impressing the subconscious is the secret. The perpetual awakening of the great within will produce a greatness, because to the powers and the possibilities of the great within there is no limit, neither is there any end." - Christian D. Larson
"Calmness of will is a sign of grandeur. The vulgar, far from hiding their will, blab their wishes. A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire." - Johann Kaspar Lavater
"Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it." - Johann Kaspar Lavater
"When unable to fulfill a specific desire, we tend to exaggerate its importance for our happiness... Become aware of your tendency to consider something more important than it really is when you lack it." - Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach
"It is not true that a man can believe or disbelieve what he will. But it is certain that an active desire to find any proposition true will unconsciously tend to that result, by dismissing importunate suggestions which run counter to the belief, and welcoming those which favor it. The psychological law, that we only see what interests us, and only assimilate what is adapted to our condition, causes the mind to select its evidence." - George Henry Lewes
"Envy and anger, not being caused by pain and pleasure simply in themselves, but having in them some mixed considerations of ourselves and others, are not therefore to be found in all men, because those other parts, of valuing their merits, or intending revenge, is wanting in them. but all the rest [of the passions], terminating purely in pain and pleasure, are, I think, to be found in all men. For we love, desire, rejoice, and hope, only in respect of pleasure; we hate, fear, and grieve, only in respect of pain ultimately. In fine, all these passions are moved by things, only as they appear to be the causes of pleasure and pain, or to have pleasure or pain some way or other annexed to them." - John Locke
"No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being; that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed." - James Russell Lowell
"Honor-seeking pushes people to do things more than any other desire in the world. If a person would give up his demands for status, he would be content as long as his minimum needs for food, clothing, and shelter were met." - Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal
"I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
"Happy is the man who, by continually effacing all images and through introversion and the lifting up of his mind to God, at last forgets and leaves behind all such hindrances... If, therefore, thou desirest a safe stair and short path to arrive at the end of true bliss, then, with an intent mind, earnestly desire and aspire after continual cleanness of heart and purity of mind. Add to this a constant calm and tranquillity of the senses, and a recollecting of the affections of the heart, continually fixing them above. Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms... Thus continue, until thou becomest immutable and dost arrive at any vicissitude of space or time, reposing in that inward quiet and secret mansion of the deity." - Albertus Magnus, known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne
"A man can be kind, honest, compassionate, even humble, and all inspired by a desire for recognition and praise." - Leibush Malbim, aka Malbim, Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michal "the Malbim", Meïr Leibush ben Jehiel Michel Weiser
"There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man’s affections center in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold of the heart, it shuts out all other considerations, but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of covetousness, for you know not where it will end." - Richard Mant
"It is more important to listen to questions than to answer them. To listen with full intent, with full openness, with a genuine desire to understand not the question only, but the question behind the question, and to be at one with the questioner - this is an engagement very difficult." - William B. J. Martin
"Nothing so deeply imprints anything in our memory as the desire to forget it." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. We try all the ways that can lead us to it. When reason fails us, we use experience.. which is a weaker and less dignified means. But truth is so great a thing that we must not disdain any medium that will lead us to it." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"We are never [present with] at home, we are always beyond [ourselves]. Fear, desire, hope, project us toward the future and steal from us the feeling and consideration of what is, to busy us with what will be, even when we shall no longer be." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"The spirit of politeness is a desire to bring about by our words and manners, that others may be pleased with us and with themselves." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"We are here to attempt to give more to this life than we take from it, a task that, if undertaken properly, is impossible. The more we give, the more we get. But that’s the point. We are here to discover, develop and cultivate, in loving stewardship of our world, our neighbors and ourselves. Each of us is intended to grow and flourish within the power of our talents on every dimension of worldly existence: the Intellectual, the Aesthetic and the Moral - the great I Am - in such a way as to find our place in the overarching realm of the Spiritual, the ultimate context of it all. There is more to life than meets the eye. Much is required. But more is offered. We are participants in a grand enterprise, not called upon to consume with endless desire, but rather to care and create in such a way as to free the spirit of this vast creation to love and glorify its creator forever. Why? Because it is good. And that’s good enough for me." - Tom Morris, fully Thomas V. "Tom" Morris
"If we crave for the goal that is worthy and fitting for man, namely, happiness of life - and this is accomplished by philosophy alone and by nothing else, and philosophy, as I said, means for us desire for wisdom, and wisdom the science of truth in things, and of things some are properly so called, others merely share the name - it is reasonable and most necessary to distinguish and systematize the accidental qualities of things." - Nicomachus of Gerasa NULL
"The desire of one man to live on the fruits of another's labor is the original sin of the world." - John O'Brien
"Nothing ever escapes desire, but, like a forest fire, it proceeds onward, consuming and destroying everything." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL
"The health of the soul is to have its faculties - reason, high spirit, and desire - happily tempered, with reason in command, and reining in both the other two, like restive horses. The special name of this health is temperance." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL
"To philosophize is but to desire to see things accurately." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL
"Know this, that troubles come swifter than the things we desire." - Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL
"To shun desire is to conquer a kingdom." - Publius Syrus
"If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father’s vices; thou canst not rebuke that in children that they behold practiced in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts; such as thy behavior is before they children’s faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents backs." - Francis Quarles
"If you desire to be magnanimous, undertake nothing rashly, and fear nothing thou undertakes; fear nothing but infamy; dare anything but injury; the measure of magnanimity is neither to be rash nor timorous." - Francis Quarles
"There is a cowardly propensity in the human heart that delights in oppressing somebody else, and in the gratification of this base desire we always select a victim that can be outraged with safety." - James Thomas Rapier