A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory.

Henry David Thoreau

Quote Topics

Heart Intellect Permanent Pleasures Transitory

Quote Author

Henry David Thoreau
American - Author
July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862

Sensual pleasures are like soap bubbles, sparkling, effervescent. The pleasures of intellect are calm, beautiful, sublime, ever enduring and climbing upward to the borders of the unseen world.

John H Aughey

There is not a little generalship and stratagem required in the managing and marshalling of our pleasures, so that each shall not mutually encroach to the destruction of all. For pleasures are very voracious, too apt to worry one another, and each, like Aaron's serpent, is prone to swallow up the rest. Thus drinking will soon destroy the power, gaming the means, and sensuality the taste, for other pleasures less seductive, but far more salubrious, and permanent as they are pure.

Charles Caleb Colton

There is a line that I always loved from Lucretius. He said, "The sublime is the art of exchanging easier for more difficult pleasures." The presumption of that formulation is that the more difficult pleasures are actually better than the easier pleasures. That is why one makes the exchange.

Andrew Solomon

Work, especially if you're lucky in what you do, is one of the great pleasures of life, but - like all pleasures - it can become selfish.

Peter Hitchens

In life there are two things which are dependable. The pleasures of the flesh and the pleasures of literature.

Sei Shonagon

Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet and tranquillity of thy life.

Jeremy Taylor

The rich and luxurious may claim an exclusive right to those pleasures which are capable of being purchased by pelf, in which the mind has no enjoyment, and which only afford a temporary relief to languor by steeping the senses in forgetfulness; but in the precious pleasures of the intellect, so easily accessible by all mankind, the great have no exclusive privilege; for such enjoyments are only to be procured by our own industry.

Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

I once heard that Quentin Tarantino, who I obviously love and think is a genius, says that there's no such thing as guilty pleasure, there's only pleasures. And I do love that idea, because I do think that there's a pretentiousness when people make a list of their favorite things. I like to live a life where I don't think of my pleasures as guilty pleasures.