Human Pleasure Quotes

When greed is enthroned, be it in a community or nation, ungodliness is celebrated at the altar of human pleasure. ~ Sunday Adelaja

If human pleasure did not have both a lid and a time limit, we would not bestir ourselves to do things that were not pleasurable, such as toiling for our subsistence. And then we would not survive. By the same token, should our mass mind ever become discontented with the restricted pleasures doled out by nature, as well as disgruntled over the lack of restrictions on pain, we would omit the mandates of survival from our lives out of a stratospherically acerbic indignation. And then we would not reproduce. As a species, we do not shout into the sky, "The pleasures of this world are not enough for us." In fact, they are just enough to drive us on like oxen pulling a cart full of our calves, which in their turn will put on the yoke. As inordinately evolved beings, though, we can postulate that it will not always be this way. "A time will come," we say to ourselves, "when we will unmake this world in which we are battered between long burden and brief delight, and will live in pleasure for all our days." The belief in the possibility of long-lasting, high-flown pleasures is a deceptive but adaptive flimflam. It seems that nature did not make us to feel too good for too long, which would be no good for the survival of the species, but only to feel good enough for long enough to keep us from complaining that we do not feel good all the time. ~ Thomas Ligotti

Sex is not wrong. Sex is not dirty. Not even sex in a public place with a man you barely know. It's not. Sex is a gift, a built-in human pleasure, something to enjoy and cherish and utilize. Sex rejuvenates. Sex replenishes. Orgasms are just one more miraculous function our body provides, no more shameful than a sneeze or the beating of our hearts. Sex is not dirty, not even in public places with someone you barely know. Liking sex, like a man's hands on me, coming with him, letting him inside me ... that doesn't make me dirty. ~ Megan Hart

I pondered my friend's words. I liked best what he had said about the fireballs since I myself often had the same feeling. The quiet spell of the colored flame, rising into the darkness and all too soon drowning in it, struck me as a symbol of all human pleasure, for the more beautiful it is, the less it satisfies us and the more quickly it is spent. ~ Hermann Hesse

Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition. ~ John Ruskin

Because you happen to be a writer doesn't mean you have to deny yourself the ordinary human pleasure of being praised and applauded. ~ Philip Roth

When your organization becomes more human, more remarkable, faster on its feet, and more likely to connect directly with customers, it becomes indispensable. The very thing that made your employee a linchpin makes YOU a linchpin. ~ Seth Godin

My only hope for the world is in bringing the human mind into contact with divine revelation. ~ William E. Gladstone

I'm a minimalist. I see things in simple ways ... It's human nature to define complexity as better. Well, it's not. ~ Gordon Willis

could not forget your conduct to me, Jane--the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Love and kindness are the hammer and chisel that gently chip through barriers and long-held beliefs to reveal the magnificent soul contained within every human. ~ Molly Friedenfeld

The hatred that vibrated beneath the surface of my girl's face-- I think Suzanne recognized it. Of course my hand would anticipate the weight of a knife. The particular give of a human body. There was so much to destroy. ~ Emma Cline

For the whole earth is a point, and how small a nook in it is this thy dwelling, and how few are there in it, and what kind of people are they who will praise thee. This then remains: Remember to retire into this little territory of thy own, and above all do not distract or strain thyself, but be free, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal. ~ Marcus Aurelius

If the truth about loving or hateful choices were revealed it would break open the earth's crust. Which is why we live in legalized and general delusion. Fiction takes the place of reality. This is why simply naming one of these turns of the unconscious that are part of our strange human adventure engenders such upsets (which are at once intimate, individual, and political); why consciously or unconsciously we constantly try to save ourselves from this naming. ~ Helene Cixous

The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what's really inside, it's just not going to be there. ~ Herbie Hancock

Yes, they have all done some good work that has left our world a safer place today. But we need a more direct strategy that can endure for as long as the threat persists without hurting the sovereignty of nations and human rights of the same people it seeks to protect. ~ Ray Anyasi

Freedom and wildness, that which we were born into, is a grand mystery and miracle that creates a openness reserved not for barring us in but for keeping us out of cages. It is our ability to find the truth that has been a survival tool for our species both individually and corporately. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

I have since tried out this human-beings-as-nothing-but-radio-receivers theory on Paul Slazinger, and he toyed with it some. "So Green River Cemetery is full of busted radios," he mused, "and the transmitters they were tuned to still go on and on."
"That's the theory," I said.
He said that all he'd been able to receive in his own head for the past twenty years was static and what sounded like weather reports in some foreign language he'd never heard before. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

(We) consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men. Every god and devil that ever existed, be it among the Greeks, Chinese, or Zulus, are within us, exist as latent possibilities, as wishes, as alternatives. If the human race were to vanish from the face of the earth save for one halfway talented child that had received no education, this child would rediscover the entire course of evolution, it would be capable of producing everything once more, gods and demons, paradises, commandments, the Old and New Testament. ~ Hermann Hesse

Why did every human concern clog itself up in a tangle of routines, formalities, disciplines, imperatives? Why couldn't one be free? Really free? Guarding one's freedom, wasn't freedom at all. Why couldn't one win one's freedom for good and all, and get on with life? ~ H.G.Wells

Whenever a human being ceases to live for themselves and begins to care about that which is greater than themselves, the personality begins to experience ecstasy, joy and spontaneous liberation. And that's found through doing, through action, through giving, through deeply embracing the human experience. ~ Andrew Cohen

The pain of being treated like a mere object. And a sense that this pain would turn into pleasure. ~ Natsuo Kirino

Like symbolism, decadence puts forth the idea that the function of literature is to evoke impressions and 'correspondences', rather than to realistically depict the world ... the decadent aestheticized decay and took pleasure in perversity. In decadent literature, sickness is preferable to health, not only because sickness was regarded as more interesting, but because sickness was construed as subversive, as a threat to the very fabric of society. By embracing the marginal, the unhealthy and the deviant, the decadents attacked bourgeois life, which they perceived as the chief enemy of art. ~ Asti Hustvedt

The subject who speaks is situated in relation to the other. This privilege of the other ceases to be incomprehensible once we admit that the first fact of existence is neither being in itself nor being for itself but being for the other, in other words, that human existence is a creature. By offering a word, the subject putting himself forward lays himself open and, in a sense, prays. ~ Claudia Rankine

Gatekeepers and people that work in marketing are suckling pigs at the helm of Satan's phallus. They are the death of art, and ultimately the death of the human spirit. ~ Cockballs

We are so fortunate, as Australians, to have among us the oldest continuing cultures in human history. Cultures that link our nation with deepest antiquity. We have Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley that is as ancient as the great Palaeolithic cave paintings at Altamira and Lascaux in Europe. ~ Kevin Rudd

There are very few people who have committed more to the pro-life discourse than Rob has. He's spent time in jail. He has really lived it. He has committed everything he's had to it. If in fact he believes that every human life was sacred, I knew that if he had his conscious awakened, I knew he wouldn't be able to close his eyes to it. ~ Abigail Disney

Attaching a single patient's photo to a CT exam increased diagnostic accuracy by 46 percent. And roughly 80 percent of the key diagnostic findings came only when the radiologists saw the patient's photo. The radiologists missed these important findings when the photo was absent - even if they caught them three months earlier. When the radiologists saw the patient's photo, they felt more empathy. By encouraging empathy, the photos motivated the radiologists to conduct their diagnoses more carefully. Their reports were 29 percent longer when the CT exams included patient photos. When the radiologists saw a photo of a patient, they felt a stronger connection to the human impact of their work. A patient photo "makes each CT scan unique," said one radiologist. ~ Adam M. Grant

Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that play
more than piety, more than charity or vigilance
was what allowed human beings to transcend evil. ~ Tom Robbins

It is well known that the black race is the most oppressed and most exploited of the human family. It is well known that the spread of capitalism and the discovery of the New World had as an immediate result the rebirth of slavery which was, for centuries, a scourge for the Negroes and a bitter disgrace for mankind. What everyone does not perhaps know, is that after sixty-five years of so-called emancipation, American Negroes still endure atrocious moral and material sufferings, of which the most cruel and horrible is the custom of lynching. ~ Ho Chi Minh

These capacities for randomness may have been amplified into human creativity through sexual and social selection. ~ Geoffrey Miller

Like I am not whole unless you smile. Like the suns rise when you move closer. Like there is nothing sweeter than touching you and hearing your moans of pleasure." At ~ Ruby Dixon

It would be easy to call it quits. Occasionally I have these moments, not often. There is nothing to do but sit still until they pass. Tantrums and passions I don't need, endurance is what I need. I have found that it is even possible to take a certain pleasure out of submission to necessity. That have I borne, this can I bear also. ~ Wallace Stegner

I was really sick and I walked outside of the bus and realised; oh no I'm not allowed to be sick. I'm not allowed to say; sorry no I can't pose with you for a photo because I'm sick. I am a super human now, or I have to be one. ~ Katy Perry

A world in which the choices we make do not finally matter, because our wills are already fixed beneath the weight of a crushing determinism, is not a human world. ~ William Shakespeare

With a little hum of pleasure, he strokes my leg, his expression content, his body loose-limbed and lazy. Give the man a blow job and a little unexpected ass play, and he's practically purring. ~ Kristen Callihan

Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion.
For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it. So upon logic was founded the nonsense that displays itself in the tales and rhymes of Lewis Carroll. If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not have arisen. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Most specifically, irrationality means that rational systems are unreasonable systems. By that I mean that they deny the basic humanity, the human reason, of the people who work within or are served by them. ~ George Ritzer

The soul of one who serves God always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, is always in her palace of jubilation, ever singing with fresh ardor and fresh pleasure a new song of joy and love. ~ John Of The Cross

My 'pieces' all fit and they are not missing. I'm not a puzzle to be solved. I'm not a mystery. I'm a WHOLE human. ~ Tina J. Richardson

You can never predict how someone you love will react to another human being, but if they choose to be affectionate or loving you can only experience the immobility of jealousy if you see their decisions as having anything to do with you. That is your choice. If a partner loves another, he isn't being "unfair," he is simply being. If you label it unfair, you'll probably ~ Wayne W. Dyer

Any successful hospitality operation - be it a hotel or restaurant, chain or independent, low-cost provider or luxury establishment - requires an effectively performing individual operation. You have to attract the right customers, have the service product, set the right price for your product, and provide the right level of service - all the while managing your employees the right way to achieve your goals. This requires a combination of knowledge from a variety of disciplines, and thus this section includes contributions from our faculty in human resources, management, marketing, operations, and strategy. ~ Michael C. Sturman

Whoever regards human beings as a herd and flees them as swiftly as he can will no doubt be overtaken by them and impaled on theirhorns. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I believe in animal rights, human rights, land rights, water rights, air rights. ~ Rod Coronado

Why can't they see that spiritualism and science are one? That bodies evolve and souls evolve and the universe is a fluid place that marries them both in a wonderful package called a human being. ~ Garth Stein

I'm a voyeur. I say that with no embarrassment. If I could have a superpower, being invisible would be it, no question. I'm fascinated by human behavior; observing people and seeing how much story gets told without a lot of dialogue, and how much our brain fills in. ~ Thomas Schlamme

More seriously-and this is probably why there has been a lot of garbage talked about a lost generation-it was easy to see, all over the landscape of contemporary fiction, the devastating effect of the Thatcher years. So many of these writers wrote without hope. They had lost all ambition, all desire to to wrestle with the world. Their books dealt with tiny patches of the world, tiny pieces of human experience-a council estate, a mother, a father, a lost job. Very few writers had the courage or even the energy to bite off a big chunk of the universe and chew it over. Very few showed any linguistic or formal innovation. Many were dulled and therefore dull. (And then, even worse, there were the Hooray Henries and Sloanes who evidently thought that the day of the yuppie novel, and the Bellini-drinking, okay-yah fiction had dawned. Dukedoms and country-house bulimics abounded. It was plain that too may books were being published; that too many writers had found their way into print without any justification for it at all; that too many publishers had adopted a kind of random, scattergun policy of publishing for turnover and just hoping that something would strike a cord.
When the general picture is so disheartening, it is easy to miss the good stuff. I agreed to be a judge for "Best of Young British Novelists II" because I wanted to find out for myself if the good stuff really was there. In my view, it is...One of my old schoolmasters was fond of devising English versions of ~ Salman Rushdie

The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti once remarked that observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence. When I first read this statement, the thought, 'What nonsense!' shot through my mind before I realized that I had just made an evaluation. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated "building blocks," but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object's interaction with the observer. ~ Fritjof Capra

With the Internet, we can communicate instantly across the globe, but the net also makes it possible for us to shrink ever further into our own skins - a state of being that neither suits the human temperament nor provides ground for further growth. ~ Mariella Frostrup

Blaming others wouldn't do. Only when I began to see the world's ills mirrored in myself did I begin to find an answer; only as I began to address that uncomfortable word, sin, did I see that I was not being handed a load of needless guilt so much as a useful tool for confronting the negative side of human behavior. ~ Kathleen Norris

I feel it respectful to observe and practice new customs, if I am to ever understand what it truly means to be human. ~ Jacob D. Lochner