Earthly Desires Quotes

• I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

  Plato

  Plato, Conflict, Combat

  Plato (1871). “Gorgias. Philebus. Parmenides. Theaetetus. Sophist. Statesman”, p.118

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• By an increase in anger, warfare arises. By an increase of greed, famine arises. By an increase of stupidity, pestilence arises. Because these three calamities occur, the people's earthly desires grow all the more intense, and their false views thrive and multiply.

  Nichiren

  Views, People, Stupidity

  53 Copy quote

• Himmlisch ist's wenn ich bezwungen Meine irdische Begier; Aber doch wenn's nich gelungen Hatt' ich auch recht huebsch Plaisir! Loosely translated: It is heavenly, when I overcome My earthly desires But nevertheless, when I'm not successful, It can also be quite pleasurable.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Successful, Desire, Overcoming

  9 Copy quote

• Superstition is related to this life, religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, religion to virtue; it is by the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious; it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these desires that we become religious.

  Madame de Stael

  Religious, Sacrifice, Desire

  "Life of Madame de Staël" by Abel Stevens, (Ch. XXXIV), 1880.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Buddhism - Tibetan Buddhism - teaches us many things, peace comes from within, we must be free ourselves from earthly desires...

  Peter Sagal

  Buddhism, Desire, Teach

  "Panel Round One". "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. September 26, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anyone who is not totally dead to himself will soon find that he is tempted and overcome by piddling and frivolous things. Whoever is weak in spirit, given to the flesh and inclined to sensual things can, but only with great difficulty, drag himself away from his earthly desires. Therefore he is often gloomy and sad when he is trying to pull himself away from them, and easily gives way to anger should someone attempt to oppose him.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Giving, Sensual, Desire

  7 Copy quote