A Quote by Richard Whately

If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.

Richard Whately

Quote Topics

Destroyed Most Our Pleasures Were Wishes Would Would Be

Quote Author

Richard Whately
English - Writer
February 1, 1787 - October 8, 1863

We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.

Aesop

We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

C. S. Lewis

The prosperity of Masonry as a means of strengthening our religion and propagating true brotherly love, is one of the dearest wishes of my heart, which, I trust, will be gratified by the help of the Grand Architect of the Universe.

William Howard Taft

Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system of the country would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable…it would have complete power to decide what we are to be given and on what terms. It would not only decide what commodities and services were to be available and in what quantities; it would be able to direct their distributions between persons to any degree it liked.

Friedrich August von Hayek

On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things. If our experience is destroyed, our behavior will be destructive. If our experience is destroyed, we have lost our own selves.

R. D. Laing

Our cares are the mothers, not only of our charities And virtues, but of our best joys and most cheering and enduring pleasures.

William Gilmore Simms

If fishes were wishes the ocean would be all of our desire.

Gertrude Stein

I am sure my fellow-scientists will agree with me if I say that whatever we were able to achieve in our later years had its origin in the experiences of our youth and in the hopes and wishes which were formed before and during our time as students.

Felix Bloch

So often, we believe we are alone in the privacy of our fantasies, but that is a delusion as well - and perhaps the most dangerous kind. For in letting ourselves forget about the common threads of our innermost wishes, we erode our foundations and lose the keystone of our souls.

Tiffany Baker

In our land of opportunities and distractions, it's hard to devote our attention to the quiet pleasures of reading. It's as if we live our lives in a noisy restaurant and can't have the intimate conversation we most yearn for.

Steve Leveen

If God were to remove all evil from our world (but somehow leave human beings on the planet), it would mean that the essence of 'humanness' would be destroyed. We would become robots.

Billy Graham

We can imagine our bodies being destroyed, our brains ceasing to function, our bones turning to dust, but it is harder - some would say impossible - to imagine the end of our very existence.

Paul Bloom

It is most cheering and encouraging for me to know that in the efforts which I have made and am making for the restoration of a righteous peace to our country, I am upheld and sustained by the good wishes and prayers of God's people. No one is more deeply than myself aware that without His favor our highest wisdom is but as foolishness and that our most strenuous efforts would avail nothing in the shadow of His displeasure.

Abraham Lincoln

Late one afternoon when returning from town we were met by a few women and children who told us that Mexican troops from some other town had attacked our camp, killed all the warriors of the guard, captured all our ponies, secured our arms, destroyed our supplies, and killed many of our women and children.. when all were counted, I found that my aged mother, my young wife, and my three small children were among the slain.