A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Were we perfectly acquainted with the object, we should never passionately desire it.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Quote Topics

Acquainted Desire Never Object Passionately Perfectly Should Were

Quote Author

Francois de La Rochefoucauld
French - Writer
September 15, 1613 - March 17, 1680

We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We should desire very few things passionately if we did but perfectly know the nature of the things we desire.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

Abraham Lincoln

I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

Abraham Lincoln

I try to rediscover why that object exists at all, and why one should take the trouble to reconsider It. I don't consider the technical or commercial parameters so much as the desire for a dream that humans have attempted to project onto an object.

Philippe Starck

We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the desire between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing.

Rebecca Solnit

It has frequently been said that we never desire what we think absolutely inapprehensible: it is however true that some of our sharpest agonies are those in which the object of desire is regarded as both possible and imaginary.

T. S. Eliot

One [expert] said, 'Always have a baby sitter who is acquainted with your children.' If they were acquainted with my children, they wouldn't sit!

Phyllis Diller

Isn’t desire always the same, whether the object is present or absent? Isn’t the object always absent? —This isn’t the same languor: there are two words: Pothos, desire for the absent being, and Himéros, the more burning desire for the present being.

Roland Barthes

A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father's house, and the guard of a tutor, should be fortify'd with resolution, and made acquainted with men, to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers of conversation, and his steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation.

John Locke

The words we read and words we write never say exactly what we mean. The people we love are never just as we desire them. The two symbola never perfectly match. Eros is in between.