One Desire Quotes

Or perhaps it is just that desire lies at the heart of human existence. When we turn away from one desire, we must find another to cleave to with all our strength
or else we die. ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Deep listening, compassionate listening is not listening with the purpose of analyzing or even uncovering what has happened in the past. You listen first of all in order to give the other person relief, a chance to speak out, to feel that someone finally understands him or her. Deep listening is the kind of listening that helps us to keep compassion alive while the other speaks, which may be for half an hour or forty-five minutes. During this time you have in mind only one idea, one desire: to listen in order to give the other person the chance to speak out and suffer less. This is your only purpose. Other things like analyzing, understanding the past, can be a by-product of this work. But first of all listen with compassion. Compassion ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

In my one desire to know you, all else melted away."
That you is that immensity which is the climax of desires, that you is that which all your desires are chasing. When you ask for a pizza, you are not really asking for a pizza. You are asking for That. But because you have no way to come to That, so you take an ugly substitute, an ugly shortcut. So what do you order? A pizza. But what do you want? God.
So you want God, but that is not being sold in any of these huts. So instead you go and say, "Pizza with extra cheese, seasoning and this and that." That waiter is an idiot. Had he been a realized man, he would have said, "We don't sell God. And that is what you need. ~ Anonymous

It didn't take long for us to realize, though, that we hadn't eaten since the eggs twenty-four hours earlier. Eating was the one desire of the flesh we hadn't fulfilled.
I remembered seeing a McDonald's near the entrance of our hotel, and since I needed a little exercise I offered to dart out for some safe and predictable American food, which would tide us over till the dinner we had reservations for that night. Our blood sugar was too low to comb the city, looking for a place to have a quick lunch.
I knew Marlboro Man was a ketchup-only guy when it comes to burgers, and that's what I ordered when I approached the counter: "Hamburger, ketchup only, please."
"Sar…you only want kitchipinmite?" the innocent clerk replied.
"Excuse me?"
"Kitchipinmite?"
"Uh…pardon?"
"You jis want a hamburger with kitchipinmite?"
"Uh…what?" I had no idea what the poor girl was saying.
It took me about ten minutes to realize the poor Australian woman behind the counter was merely repeating and confirming my order: kitchip (ketchup) inmite (and meat). It was a traumatic ordering experience.
I returned to the hotel room, and Marlboro Man and I dug into our food like animals.
"This tastes a little funny," my new husband said.
I concurred. The mite was not right. It didn't taste like America. ~ Ree Drummond

That's my one desire, to be caught," answered Vronsky, with his serene,
good-humored smile. "If I complain of anything it's only that I'm not caught
enough, to tell the truth. I begin to lose hope. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires. ~ John Cleese

So many girls allow themselves to be bleeding idiots because that's what's expected of them. Dress like a girl. Walk like one. Eat like one. Desire the things a girl should desire, and nothing more - but how can that be called desire, if it's dictated. ~ Lauren DeStefano

Wants are never satiated. In fulfilling one desire, we neglect another. ~ Matt Tomerlin

I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His Face. ~ Thomas Merton

Can one desire too much of a good thing? ~ William Shakespeare

I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. ~ Toni Morrison

I would remind my reader that Donal was a Celt, with a nature open to every fancy of love or awe
one of the same breed with the foolish Galatians, and like them ready to be bewitched; but bearing a heart that welcomed the light with glad rebound
loved the lovely, nor loved it only, but turned towards it with desire to become like it.
Fergus too was a Celt in the main, but was spoiled by the paltry ambition of being distinguished. He was not in love with loveliness, but in love with praise. He saw not a little of what was good and noble, and would fain be such, but mainly that men might regard him for his goodness and nobility; hence his practical notion of the good was weak, and of the noble, paltry. His one desire in doing anything, was to be approved of or admired in the same
approved of in the opinions he held, in the plans he pursued, in the doctrines he taught ... ~ George MacDonald

Let us never be afraid to be still before God; we shall then carry that stillness into our work; and when we go to church on Sunday, or to the prayer-meeting on week-days, it will be with the one desire that nothing may stand betwixt us and God, and that we may never be so occupied with hearing and listening as to forget the presence of God. ~ Andrew Murray

...I say to you, without pleasure, that this son of ours will be a great man, because -- well -- because he is not very intelligent. He can see only one desire at a time. I said he tested his dreams; he will murder every dream with the implacable arrows of his will. This boy will win to every goal of his aiming; for he can realize no thought, no reason, but his own. And I am sorry for his coming greatness... ~ John Steinbeck

I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire. ~ Ignatius Of Antioch

Always remember the essence of Christian holiness is simplicity and purity: one design, one desire: entire devotion to God. ~ John Wesley

It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one ... ~ Laurence Sterne

In life, have but one desire, one only
to love Jesus Christ with all your soul. Let that be the one fixed idea of your entire existence. ~ Pedro Arrupe

Happy is he who hath one desire, if that one desire be set on Christ, though it may not yet have been realized. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I had only one desire: to leave, to walk, to die, whatever. I wanted to get away, never come back, disappear, melt away into the forest, the clouds, no longer have memories, forget, forget. ~ Agota Kristf

I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

A person was like a dense forest thicket, overgrown with a twisting mess of vines, weeds, shrubs, saplings, and flowers. No person was one single emotion; no person had only one desire. They had many, and usually those desires conflicted with one another like two rosebushes fighting for the same patch of ground. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Twenty-two months are a long time and a lot of things can happen in them- there is time for new families to be formed, for babies to be born and even begin to talk, for a great house to rise where once there was only a field, for a beautiful woman to grow old and no one desire her any more, for an illness- for a long illness- to ripen (yet men live on heedlessly), to consume the body slowly, to recede for short periods as if cured, to take hold again more deeply and drain away the last hopes; there is time for a man to die and be buried, for his son to be able to laugh again and in the evening take the girls down the avenues and past the cemetery gates without a thought. But it seemed as if Drogo's existence had come to a halt. The same day, the same things, had repeated themselves hundreds of times without taking a step forward. The river of time flowed over the Fort, crumbled the walls, swept down dust and fragments of stone, wore away the stairs and the chain, but over Drogo it passed in vain- it had not yet succeeded in catching him, bearing him with it as it flowed. ~ Dino Buzzati

Timothy's great value was that he was always willing to go anywhere; and in his hands a message was as safe as if Paul had delivered it himself. Others might be consumed with selfish ambition; but Timothy's one desire was to serve Paul and Jesus Christ. He is the patron saint of all those who are quite content with the second place, so long as they can serve. ~ William Barclay

We should have but one desire today - the desire to die so that India may live - the desire to face a martyr's death, so that the path to freedom may be paved with the martyr's blood. ~ Subhas Chandra Bose

Put your hand on your heart and ask yourself, what do I want? The first thing that comes to mind is always the right one. ~ Layne Beachley

The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: fascinated by the realm of the senses it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next. Let this monkey go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Just remain in the center, watching. ~ Lao-Tzu

The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace. ~ Jean Klein

Perfection of rhythm, balanced perfection of rhythm. Everything in Nature is expressed by rhythmic waves of light. Every thought and action is a light-wave of thought and action. If one interprets the God within one, one's thoughts and actions must be balanced rhythmic waves. Ugliness, fears, failures and diseases arise from unbalanced thoughts and actions. Therefore think beauty always if one desire vitality of body and happiness. ~ Walter Russell

Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no
change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is
theirs. ~ Isaac Asimov

Why does one love? How queer it is to see only one being in the world, to have only one thought in one's mind, only one desire in the heart, and only one name on the lips
a name which comes up continually, rising, like the water in a spring, from the depths of the soul to the lips, a name which one repeats over and over again, which one whispers ceaselessly, everywhere, like a prayer. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Once all come to know that by the concentration of the mind on one point, on one principle, on one desire, a power is radiated to that point with creative nature and demonstrative abilities, man will think more carefully, more constructively and more efficiently ~ Harvey Spencer Lewis

It is always now. This might sound trite, but it is the truth. It's not quite true as a matter of neurology, because our minds are built upon layers of inputs whose timing we know must be different.11 But it is true as a matter of conscious experience. The reality of your life is always now. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world. But we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth - overlooking it, fleeing it, repudiating it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to avoid being happy while struggling to become happy, fulfilling one desire after the next, banishing our fears, grasping at pleasure, recoiling from pain - and thinking, interminably, about how best to keep the whole works up and running. ~ Sam Harris

What are you doing here?" – Sundown
"Zarek sent me in, just in case." – Sasha
"'Cause shit rolls downhill." – Sundown
"Yeah, and what upsets Z gets my ass kicked. Have I ever told you how much it chafes me that Astrid gave that psycho bastard god powers? I swear I go to bed every night with the one desire to rip out his throat, and I don't even live with them anymore. Sad, isn't it?" – Sasha ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

A pure heart means a single heart, a heart in which only one desire lives: love. ~ Peter Kreeft

Each sex has a relation to madness. Every desire has a relation to madness. But it would seem that one desire has been taken as wisdom, moderation, truth, leaving to the other sex the weight of a madness that cannot be acknowledged or accommodated. ~ Luce Irigaray

Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do. ~ Nina George

Some feelings are rooted too strongly in the body to exist without it, and this one, desire, is one of them. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Are not our desires inseparably intertwined with the continuation of life? Even the idea of eliminating desire is fruitless. The desire to eliminate all desire is still itself a desire. How can we find release and peace by replacing one desire with another? Surely we shall find peace not by eliminating desire, but by finding its fulfillment and satisfaction in the One who created it. ~ Sadhu Sundar Singh

[Dream] I do not want a grape.
[Desire] I could make you want one. ~ Neil Gaiman

We only have one desire,
which wants to manifest
in thousands of ways,
like a flower who
blooms in billions of shades
to express her only one desire...
to be beautiful ~ Debasish Mridha

And so you try your best. Sometimes you go in with one thing, with one desire and come out with something else. In the case of The Aviator it was to create a Hollywood spectacle, but by about the second or third week of shooting you just want to literally survive it. Because don't forget, I also go through the editing process too, and when the film is released I have to talk about it. So, I take all of that very seriously. ~ Martin Scorsese

304. When you are in prison, you have but one desire: freedom.
If you fall ill in prison, you do not think about freedom, you think about health. Health is, therefore, more important than freedom. ~ Alija Izetbegovic

The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire ... driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight! ~ Carson McCullers

He seems to read nothing but my books, and says his one desire is to 'follow in my footsteps'! But I have told him that they lead to terrible places. ~ Oscar Wilde

Bliss becomes blissful with practice. In our own bliss the desire, desirer and process of desiring are united - they are one. Desire is fulfilled at its source. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

Mystery is a very deep and elusive concept to define. I honestly cannot tell you what it is, but I can only provide you with tools to help point you in the direction of discovering it for yourself. What I know about mystery for sure is this: it is what's responsible for creating adventure, novelty, surprise, edge, risk, rewards, passion, desire, depth, joy, excitement, seduction, faith, trust, conviction, aliveness, sensuality. Without mystery, life will be utterly boring, dull and depressing. ~ Lebo Grand

It was a desire, an echo, a sound; she could drape it in color, see it in form, hear it in music, but not in words; no, never in words. She sighed, teased by desires so incoherent, so incommunicable. ~ Virginia Woolf

Every living being on earth loves life above all else. The smallest insect, whose life lasts only an instant, tries to escape from any danger in order to live a moment longer. And the desire to live is most developed in man. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Taking the way that opens, even if it seems hardly more than a footpath, not infrequently leads to the highways of heart's desire, if not to fame and fortune. ~ Frances Parkinson Keyes

Passing into higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant, and fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man. ~ Henry George

Taking the 'desert island challenge' which leads Christians to submit their family life to Sola Scriptura inevitably leads them to desire to submit their corporate worship to Sola Scriptura.
(Excerpt from the forward of "How God Wants Us to Worship Him" by Joseph C. Morecraft) ~ Douglas W. Phillips

The language of the King James Bible is the language of patriarchy, of an instructed order, of richness as a form of beauty, of authority as a form of good; the New English Bible is motivated by the opposite, an anxiety not to bore or intimidate. It is driven, in other words, by the desire to please and, in that way, is a form of language which has died. ~ Adam Nicolson

The coaches will offer a direction, a plan, routine, discipline and the players must develop the desire to work together accepting their roles as they learn in preparation for the season. ~ George M. Gilbert

She felt damned. As though she were marching to her death. She felt like had been sentenced. And yet she felt eerily free. ~ Tan Redding

You can want and want and want, but if he doesn't want you back ... you might as well wish the sky were red. ~ Sophie Kinsella

I'm trying to find something wrong with you so that I don't want you so much. ~ Kate McGahan

FORBIDDEN BRIDES OF THE FACELESS SLAVES IN THE SECRET HOUSE OF THE NIGHT OF DREAD DESIRE ~ Neil Gaiman

I think that you have to restrain yourself from googling your name and have other hobbies and desires and wants. You do a million things. You go to school, you write, you read, you blog. ~ Mila Kunis

I started as - well, I wanted to be Poet Laureate. And I wanted to be a naturalist. That's how I began. I didn't have any desire to go and be a scientist. Louis Leakey channeled me there. I'm delighted he did. I love science. I love analyzing and making sense of all these observations. So, it was the perfect rounding off of who I was into who I am. ~ Jane Goodall

Public education is a great instrument of social change. Through it, if we so desire, we can make our country more nearly a democracy without classes. To do so will require the efforts of us all-teachers, administrators, taxpayers and statesmen. Education is a social process, perhaps the most important process in determining the future of our country; it should command a far larger portion of our national income than it does today. ~ James Bryant Conant

As iron is fashioned by fire and on the anvil, so in the fire of suffering and under the weight of trials, our souls receive that form which our Lord desires them to have. ~ Madeleine Sophie Barat

However rich or elevated, a name less something is always wanting to our imperfect fortune. ~ Horace

Perversion is used only to overcome moral prejudices or conformity; the mind and desire must become amoral, focused and made entirely acceptive so that the life-force is free of inhibitions prior to the control. Thus, the Sabbath becomes a deliberate sex-orgy for the purpose of materialization: the Great Reality of 'as if (wishful thinking). Sex is fully exploited: he who injures none, himself does not injure. ~ Anonymous

You may not believe it, but it is what I desire the most in the world. This place has afflicted me with a terrible wanderlust. I long for the fire, for the sights you have seen. Yet here I am, two hundred years after I arrived. Still a prisoner, though I masquerade as a king. ~ Samantha Shannon

Envy says, What is inside me is bad. What is outside me is good. I hate anyone who has something I desire. ~ Henry Cloud

Unless you accept the possibility of defeat you will not eliminate desire. ~ Vadim Zeland

We find an abundance of anger and the desire to destroy the opposition in any competitive human environment. Hate sparks contest, and in the modern world, attorneys are the paid gladiators of warring parties. Attorneys are for hire to the highest bidder. Attorneys ply their trade by dealing in the commerce of anger and hatred. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We kissed, then, and the ardour of her kiss stole my breath away. I returned her passion with all the fervor I possessed. A lifetime of vows and heart-felt disciplines had prepared me well, for in that kiss I sealed with all my soul the fate before me, embracing a mystery clothed in warm and yielding female flesh. Holding only the moment, with neither thought nor care for the future, I kissed her, and drank deep the strong wine of desire. ~ Stephen R. Lawhead

By giving us control, our new technologies tend to enhance existing idols in our lives. Instead of becoming more like Christ through the forming and shaping influence of the church community, we form, and shape, and personalize our community to make it more like us. We take control of things that are not ours to control. Could it be that our desire for control is short-circuiting the process of change and transformation God wants us to experience through the mess of real world, flesh and blood, face-to-face relationships? ~ Tim Challies

Everything is impermanent. Every physical and mental experience arises and passes. Everything in existence is endlessly arising out of causes and conditions. We all create suffering for ourselves through our resistance, through our desire to have things different than the way they are - that is, our clinging or aversion. ~ Noah Levine

He intrigued her. Powerful men, in her experience, were usually not so full of doubt. Kuni was consumed by the desire to do good for others, but uncertain what "good" might be and whether he was the right man for the job.
Kuni was the sort of man, Risana realized, who, rather than deceive himself, was so full of self-doubt that he could not longer see himself ~ Ken Liu

Perfection in any endeavor is an aiming point. Let the desire for it push you, but don't let the absence of it stop you. ~ Ralph Marston

Training for me is a metaphor for life, period. The dedication, the determination, the desire, the work ethic, the great successes and the great failures - I take that into life. ~ Dwayne Johnson

I certainly felt the desire to reach as many people as I could; I wanted to make the most of this opportunity, sure. But I wouldn't call it pressure the way we're thinking of it now. ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter

I write pretty much every day, but I don't have any desire to publish anything. ~ Winona Ryder

Your desire to be near to window is your desire to be close to life! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I'm sure we've all experienced really malevolent feelings once or twice in our lives, the desire to kill somebody,say.but there's always a braking mechanism somewhere along the line that stop us. ~ Ryu Murakami

She could not fail to observe that a life of academic distinction was singularly ill rewarded. She had no desire whatever to teach and she took pleasure in contacts with minds much less brilliant than her own. In short, she had a taste for people, all sorts of people - and not the same people the whole time. ~ Agatha Christie

It was from a weekly visit to the cinema that you learned (or tried to learn) how to strut, to smoke, to kiss, to fight, to grieve. Movies gave you tips about how to be attractive ( ... ). But whatever you took home from the movies was only part of the larger experience of losing yourself in faces, in lives that were not yours - which is the more inclusive form of desire embodied in the movie experience. The strongest experience was simply to surrender to, to be transported by, what was on the screen ~ Susan Sontag

I think we underestimate the universe's desire to be kind to us. ~ Cheryl Strayed

So when your hopes on fire,
But you know your desire,
Don't hold a glass over the flame,
Don't let your heart grow cold,
I will call you by name,
I will share your road. ~ Mumford & Sons

A heart assured of its purpose will have the honor to admit when it is wrong, the courage to examine the reason for its faith and the strength to recover from the pain of any wrong it has done. And it will possess the greatest power known to both God and man; the power to forgive "AND" most certainly forget. A heart such as this shall always have the voice to answer life. A heart such as this, I too desire. ~ Tonny K. Brown

You are not The Giver of My Heart's Desire." I took a deep breath and smiled. "You are my heart's desire. ~ Julianne Donaldson

Insofar as there shall always be a desire, there shall always be a want and there shall always be a need ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well ... desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy. ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

Technological consciousness takes itself dead seriously; it has no sense of humor. The fool can play no role in it, for there is no other realm that is can see beyond itself to which the fool can point. Consciousness in the throes of desire cannot tolerate laughter any more than criticism of laughter can be tolerated in a moment of sexual lust. ~ Donald Phillip Verene

In truth, I did not have to wonder. She would be feeling that disturbing mixture of emotions that she always summoned from me: admiration and envy, pride and a furious rivalry, a longing to see a beloved sister succeed, and a passionate desire to see a rival fall. ~ Philippa Gregory

To fully experience this life as a human being, we all need to connect with our desire to realize something larger than our individual selves. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man. ~ Democritus

Christian productivity is unique. Most productivity gurus will encourage you to be as selfish as you need to be, to get rid of anything that doesn't interest or excite you. But as a Christian you know you can do things that do not perfectly fit your mission but still do them out of love for God and with a desire to glorify him. ~ Tim Challies

All these years, these angers, these hardenings, this desire to control, I had thought I had to snap the hand closed to shield joy's fragile flame from the blasts. In a storm of struggles, I had tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But palms curled into protective fists fill with darkness. I feel that sharply, even in this ... and this realization in all its full emptiness: My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy. ~ Ann Voskamp