PLEASURE QUOTES IV

quotations about pleasure

Every nerve that can thrill with pleasure, can also agonize with pain.

HORACE MANN

A Few Thoughts for a Young Man

Tags: Horace Mann


The path to pleasure is frequently not pretty. One woman's misogynist may be the image of another woman's desire. And men have been known to hunger for those who hate them, too. There is a measure of spiritual authenticity in sleaze.

TRISTAN FOX

Vanity Fair, November 1984


The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and staging, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that the diner must be satisfied with the menu.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Dialectic of Enlightenment

Tags: Theodor W. Adorno


Pleasure is the structure of society. From childhood until death we are secretly, cunningly or obviously pursuing pleasure. So whatever our form of pleasure is, I think we should be very clear about it because it is going to guide and shape our lives. It is therefore important for each one of us to investigate closely, hesitantly and delicately this question of pleasure, for to find pleasure, and then nourish and sustain it, is a basic demand of life and without it existence becomes dull, stupid, lonely and meaningless.

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI

Freedom from the Known

Tags: Jiddu Krishnamurti


Pleasure is the physical manifestation of joy.

CHERIE CARTER-SCOTT

If Life Is a Game


Pleasure is a harmony--that is, a fitting together--a fitting of an external object with a mood or want within ourselves.

HERBERT MAXWELL

Littell's Living Age, March 12, 1892


But pleasures are like poppies spread--
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river--
A moment white -- then melts for ever.

ROBERT BURNS

Tam o' Shanter

Tags: Robert Burns


Better to tread where thorns and briars wound,
And safely walk at last on heavenly ground--
Than for a while to bask in pleasure's bowers,
Fanned by her breath, and shaded 'mongst her flowers:
To feel the phantom ground beneath you slide,
And see wild desolation yawning wide
T' ingulph its victim; who, around in vain,
Despairing looks for pleasure's vanished train.

ELEANOR DICKINSON

"Pleasures of Piety", The Pleasures of Piety with Other Poems


As an experience, pleasure is ... a filling up of the cup, the supplying of a need. And the deeper the draft upon vital resources, the greater the fulfilment of desire.

WILLIAM ERNEST HOCKING

The Psychological Bulletin, May 15, 1908


What is painful in pleasure? It is that in all pleasure a person desires eternity, but knows that pleasure is transient and will end. That is not a knowing that comes from a prior knowledge now applied to every pleasurable event; it is something that the depth of pleasure itself discloses to us if we listen to it: a thirst, a craving, for eternity, precisely because pleasure is not eternal but instead has fallen prey to death. On the other hand we ask: What pleasure is there in pain? It is that in the depth of pain a person feels pleasure in transience, pleasure in the obliteration of apparently endless pain, pleasure in death.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Creation and Fall

Tags: Dietrich Bonhoeffer


The excess of delight palls our appetites rather than pleases.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine

Tags: Wellins Calcott


Everybody's looking for a reason to live
If you're looking for a reason
I've a reason to give
Pleasure, little treasure

DEPECHE MODE

"Pleasure, Little Treasure"

Tags: Depeche Mode


Business first, then pleasure.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Richelieu

Tags: Edward Bulwer Lytton


Ah, many a one has started forth with hope and purpose high;
Has fought throughout a weary life, and passed all pleasure by;
Has burst all flowery chains by which men aye have been enthralled;
Has been stone-deaf to voices sweet, that softly, sadly called;
Has scorned the flashing goblet with the bubbles on its brim;
Has turned his back on jewelled hands that madly beckoned him;
Has, in a word, condemned himself to follow out his plan
By stern and lonely labor--and has died, a conquered man!

GEORGE ARNOLD

"Wool-Gathering"

Tags: George Arnold


We ought to aim at such pleasures as follow labor, not at those which precede it.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust

Tags: Eliza Cook


Pleasure is the sun of the morning, the cloud of the meridian, and the storm of the evening.

WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY

Proverbs

Tags: William Scott Downey


Pleasure is a crumbling statue.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims

Tags: Edward Counsel


Passing pleasures do but cloy,
And ape the consciousness of joy:
The wine, the women, and the song,
That tempt us here by night,
Are happy things, though not for long,
To wing oblivious flight
Above the dull, resenting pain,
That, waking, seizes on the brain,
And gives the moody fibre food
To mope, or captiously to brood,
With swollen eyes and torpid legs,
O'er foul and discontented dregs.
Ah! the quiet that did pall
Before I drank indulgence blind
Becomes the panacea in all
I seek, yet, seeking, cannot find.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

"Passing Pleasures", Imogen and Other Poems

Tags: William Batchelder Greene


For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant.

ARISTOTLE

Nicomachean Ethics

Tags: Aristotle


Even though the pursuit of pleasure is part of the American dream--an unassailable right--it is a guilt-ridden hunt.

PALA COPELAND & AL LINK

Soul Sex