Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Lust

"Mankind must realize that the basic nature of the soul is spiritual. For man and woman to look upon each other only as a means to satisfy lust is to court the destruction of happiness. Slowly, bit by bit, peace of mind will go." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"The celebration of duty is an effective way to disguise the lust for power from oneself as much as from the outside world." - Richard Barnet, fully Richard Jackson Barnet

"I define charity as a motion of the soul whose purpose is to enjoy God for His own sake and one’s self and one’s neighbor for the sake of god. Lust, on the other hand is a motion of the soul bent upon enjoying one’s self, one’s neighbor, and any creature without reference to God." -

"Lust is an appetite by which temporal goods are preferred to eternal goods." -

"Unless we cut the world population there is no way to avoid violence. People are hungry, people are starving, dying. When somebody is hungry he is going to steal. When somebody is dying, what does he care if he kills somebody else and gets money to survive? -- because lust for life is the basis of all biological growth. A man can do anything to survive." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"It is a simple truth that the human mind can face better the most oppressive government, the most rigid restrictions, than the awful prospect of a lawless, frontierless world. Freedom is a dangerous intoxicant and very few people can tolerate it in any quantity; it brings out the old raiding, oppressing, murderous instincts; the rage for revenge, for power, the lust for bloodshed. The longing for freedom takes the form of crushing the enemy- there is always the enemy!- into the earth; and where and who is the enemy if there is no visible establishment to attack, to destroy with blood and fire? Remember all that oratory when freedom is threatened again. Freedom, remember, is not the same as liberty." - Katherine Anne Porter, born Callie Russell Porter

"If we use our waning preponderance of power in a fit of anxiety, pride, and the lust to remain dominant and secure, we shall only bring down ourselves, our world, and the noble house of our traditional cultural life more quickly." - Langdon Gilkey, fully Langdon Brown Gilkey

"In describing what the Devil is, it says, "Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism; the lust of the flesh, which saith: ‘I am life and intelligence in matter. There is more than one mind, for I am mind, - a wicked mind, self-made or created by a tribal god and put into the opposite of mind, termed matter, thence to reproduce a mortal universe, including man, not after the image and likeness of Spirit, but after its own image." - Mary Baker Eddy

"When my universal religion of love is on the verge of fading into insignificance, I come to breathe life into it, and to do away with the farce of dogmas that defile it in the name of religions, and stifle it with ceremonies and rituals. The present universal confusion and unrest has filled the heart of man with greater lust for power and a greed for wealth and fame, bringing in its wake untold misery, hatred, jealousy, frustration and fear. Suffering in the world is at its height, in spite of all the striving to spread peace and prosperity to bring about lasting happiness." - Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

"Stubbornness equals character roughly as lust equals love." - Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas

"Here is, in truth, the whole secret of Yoga, the science of the soul. The active turnings, the strident vibrations, of selfishness, lust and hate are to be stilled by meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell in spiritual life, by lifting up the heart to the strong, silent life above, which rests in the stillness of eternal love, and needs no harsh vibration to convince it of true being." - Patañjali NULL

"Rightly understood, the desire for sensation is the desire of being, the distortion of the soul’s eternal life. The lust of sensual stimulus and excitation rests on the longing to feel one’s life keenly, to gain the sense of being really alive. This sense of true life comes only with the coming of the soul, and the soul comes only in silence, after self-indulgence has been courageously and loyally stilled, through reverence before the coming soul." - Patañjali NULL

"Lust applies to the abuse of any or all of the senses in the pursuit of pleasure or gratification. Through the sense of sight man may lust after material objects; through the sense of hearing, he craves the sweet, slow poison of flattery, and vibratory sounds as of voices and music that rouse his material nature; through the lustful pleasure of smell he is enticed toward wrong environments and actions; lust for food and drink causes him to please his taste at the expense of health; through the sense of touch he lusts after inordinate physical comfort and abuses the creative sex impulse. Lust also seeks gratification in wealth, status, power, domination—all that satisfies the "I, me, mine" in the egotistical man. Lustful desire is egotism, the lowest rung of the ladder of human character evolution. By the force of its insatiable passion, karma loves to destroy one's happiness, health, brain power, clarity of thought, memory, and discriminative judgment." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"Free again, but it's just a feeling; freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit yourself to what is best for you… Freedom continues to be the thing I prize most in the world. Of course, this has led me to drink wines I did not like, to do things I should not have done and which I will not do again; it has left scars on my body and on my soul, it has meant hurting certain people, although I have since asked their forgiveness, when I realized that I could do absolutely anything except force another person to follow me in my madness, in my lust for life. I don’t regret the painful times; I bear my scars like medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears… Freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed with tears… Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me… Absolute freedom does not exist: there is only the freedom to choose something from that moment onwards to feel bound by its own decision. " - Paulo Coelho

"With the plundered people transferring their energies into relaxed and receptive thoughts, degradation and lust for power produced art." - Peter Weiss, fully Peter Ulrich Weiss

"Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited." - Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL

"The human spirit sublimates the impulses it thwarts: a healthy sex life mitigates the lust for other sports." - Piet Hein

"The lust of the flesh directs these desires [of personal union], however, to satisfaction of the body, often at the cost of a real and full communion of persons. " - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

"The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL

"The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL

"Whoever breaks free from the lust for food can become a miracle worker. But someone who is stuck in this desire it is a sign that he is a liar. Even a Tzaddik who already freed himself from all desires and then falls back into the desire for food, it must be that something false left his mouth. It also shows that there is Judgment upon him from above and it is a sign of poverty. " - Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL

"Direct the six passions to God. The impulse of lust should be turned into the desire to have intercourse with Atman. Feel angry at those who stand in your way to God. Feel greedy for Him. If you must have the feeling of I and mine, then associate it with God. Say, for instance, My Rama, my Krishna. If you must have pride, then feel like Bibhishana, who said, I have touched the feet of Rama with my head; I will not bow this head before anyone else." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"God cannot be realized if there is the slightest attachment to the things of the world. A thread cannot pass through the eye of a needle if the tiniest fiber sticks out. The anger and lust of a man who has realized God are only appearances. They are like a burnt string. It looks like a string, but a mere puff blows it away." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"I am speaking of the danger of the alligators of lust and the like. Because of them one should smear one's body with turmeric before diving in" - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"It is not lust alone that one should be afraid of in the life of the world. There is also anger. Anger arises when obstacles are placed in the way of desire." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"My sins are more in number than the hairs on my head. I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust and uncleanness; I have been puffed up with pride, vanity and love of this wicked world’s pleasures. For all which, I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon, especially for this my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many for love of me have been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us, and to forgive it me – most wretched of all." - Robert Devereux, Lord Essex, 2nd Earl of Essex

"We lust, because our ancestors' lust helped pass their lustful genes on to us. Here, as it happens, Darwinism agrees with commonsense: the convention works. But sometimes the convention breaks down. If we are on the Pill, or know that our sexual partner is, it doesn't diminish our desire. We still inherit the ancient rule of thumb, now out of date. As Steven Pinker says, in his splendid book How the Mind Works, Had the Pleistocene contained trees bearing birth-control pills, we might have evolved to find them as terrifying as a venomous spider." - Richard Dawkins

"If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we must stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes." - Robert Oxton Bolt

"O my God, I know that my sins are too great to tell, And my trespasses too many to remember, Yet as a drop from the sea will I make mention of some, And make confession of them; Perhaps I shall silence the roar of their waves and their crashing, "And Thou wilt hear from heaven and forgive." I have trespassed against Thy law, I have despised Thy commandments, I have abhorred them in my heart, And with my mouth spoken slander. I have committed iniquity, And I have wrought evil, I have been presumptuous, I have done violence, I have plastered over falsehood, I have counselled evil, p. 110 I have lied, I have scoffed, I have revolted, I have blasphemed, I have been rebellious and perverse and sinful, I have stiffened my neck, I have loathed Thy rebukes and done wickedly, I have corrupted my ways, I have strayed from my paths, I have transgressed and turned away from Thy commandments. "But Thou art just in all that is come upon me For Thou hast dealt truly and I have dealt wickedly."" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"O my God, If my iniquity is too great to be borne, What wilt Thou do for Thy great name’s sake? And if I do not wait on Thy mercies, Who will have pity on me but Thee? Therefore though Thou shouldst slay me, yet will I trust in Thee. For if Thou shouldst pursue my iniquity, I will flee from Thee to Thyself, And I will shelter myself from Thy wrath in Thy shadow, And to the skirts of Thy mercies I will lay hold until Thou hast had mercy on me, And I will not let Thee go till Thou hast blessed me. Remember, I pray Thee, that of slime Thou hast made me, And by all these hardships tried me, Therefore visit me not according to my wanton dealings, Nor feed me on the fruit of my deeds, But prolong Thy patience, nor bring near my day, Until I shall have prepared provision for returning to my eternal home, Nor rage against me to send me hastily from the earth, With my sins bound up in the kneading-trough on my shoulder. And when Thou placest my sins in the balance Place Thou in the other scale my sorrows, And while recalling my depravity and frowardness, Remember my affliction and my harrying, And place these against the others. And remember, I pray Thee, O my God, That Thou hast driven me rolling and wandering like Cain, And in the furnace of exile hast tried me, And from the mass of my wickedness refined me, And I know ’tis for my good Thou hast proved me, And in faithfulness afflicted me, And that it is to profit me at my latter end That Thou hast brought me through this testing by troubles. Therefore, O God, let Thy mercies be moved toward me, And do not exhaust Thy wrath upon me, Nor reward me according to my works, But cry to the Destroying Angel: Enough! For what height or advantage have I attained That Thou shouldst pursue me for my iniquity, And shouldst post a watch over me, And trap me like an antelope in a snare? Is not the bulk of my days past and vanished? Shall the rest consume in their iniquity? And if I am here to-day before Thee, "To-morrow Thine eyes are upon me and I am not." "And now wherefore should I die And this Thy great fire devour me?" O my God, turn Thine eyes favourably upon me For the remainder of my brief days, Pursue not their escaping survivors, Nor let the remnant of the crops that the hail hath spared Be finished off by the locust for my sins. For am I not the creation of Thy hands, And what shall it avail Thee That the worm shall take me for its meal And feed on the product of Thy hands?" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"The heart of a man to the heart of a maid - Light of my tents, be fleet - Morning awaits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet." - Rudyard Kipling

"People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"You lack a foot to travel? Then journey into yourself and like a mine of rubies receive the sunbeams print. Out of yourself such a journey will lead you to yourself, it leads to transformation of dust into pure gold!" - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Thou lovest, without passion; art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing. And that have I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what saith any man when he speaks of Thee? Yet woe to him that speaketh not, since mute are even the most eloquent." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"Before we are born we are defiled with contagion, and before the enjoyment of light we receive the injury of our very origin. For we are conceived in iniquity… Birth itself has its contagions, and not only one, but nature itself has contagion." - Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL

"The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless, the last corruption of degenerate man." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"The most important tactic in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face." - Sydney J. Harris

"Man could no longer keep death away from him, for he had tasted of it in his grief for the deceased, but he did not want to acknowledge it, since he could not imagine himself dead. He therefore formed a compromise and concealed his own death but denied it the significance of destroying life, a distinction for which the death of his enemies had given him no motive. He invented spirits during his contemplation of the corpse of the person he loved, and his consciousness of guilt over the gratification which mingled with his grief brought it about that these first created spirits were transformed into evil demons who were to be feared. The changes wrought by death suggested to him to divide the individual into body and soul, at first several souls, and in this way his train of thought paralleled the disintegration process inaugurated by death. The continued remembrance of the dead became the basis of the assumption of other forms of existence and gave him the idea of a future life after apparent death." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Before we are born we are defiled with contagion, and before the enjoyment of light we receive the injury of [our] very origin. For we are conceived in iniquity... Birth itself has its contagions, and not only one, but nature itself has contagion." - Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL

"Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife." - Pope Leo I, aka Pope Leo The Great, Pope Saint Leo I NULL

"How comfortable it is to have One, day and night, before the throne to control the charge of our enemy, and the despondencies of our souls." - Stephen Charnock

"Men have naturally such slight thoughts of the majesty and law of God, that they think any service is good enough for him, and conformable to his law. The dullest and deadest time we think fittest to pay God a service in: when sleep is ready to close our eyes, and we are unfit to serve ourselves, we think it a fit time to open our hearts to God. How few morning sacrifices hath God from many persons and families! Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments, without any thought of their Creator and Preserver, or any reflection upon his will as the rule of our daily obedience." - Stephen Charnock

"The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy." - Theodore H. White, fully Theodore Harold White

"A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life. Because a man cannot tell, when he seeth men proceed against him by violence whether they intend his death or not." - Thomas Hobbes

"Desire of knowledge, and arts of peace, inclineth men to obey a common power: for such desire, containeth a desire of leisure: and consequently protection from some other power than their own." - Thomas Hobbes

"Men are freed of their covenants two ways; by performing, or by being forgiven. For performance is the natural end of obligation, and forgiveness the restitution of liberty, as being a retransferring of that right in which the obligation consisted." - Thomas Hobbes