quotations about pleasure
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
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Tam o' Shanter
The excess of delight palls our appetites rather than pleases.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
But there are pleasures appropriated to the true christian; joys which no stranger intermeddles with, in the exercise of pure and undefiled religion, which is not only a heightener of our delights, but is itself the greatest of any. Even as the sun imparts a brightness to every other object, and is himself the brightest of all. Whether he contemplates the delightful truths and ravishing mysteries of the gospel; the banquet of the mind, sweeter than all honey:--or practices spiritual duties towards his neighbor, or his God; when he prays with fervent supplication, or praises with joyful lips, or hears in his lovely tabernacles what God the Lord will say, or relieves the indigent for his Redeemer's sake, and comforts the distressed;--or exercises christian graces; be it faith, that is attended with joy unspeakable; or love, that is its own reward, and the fulfilling of the law; or hope, that anticipates the joys above, in blessful expectation, the surest anchor of the soul:--or mortifies fleshly lusts:--or resists temptations, triumphing over them with christian magnanimity:--or endures afflictions, with a becoming patience and cheerful resignation:--he tastes more solid pleasures than ever the sensualist could boast. Pleasures that are true in fruition, fully answering the most sanguine expectation. Pleasures, whose repetition does not cloy, and their continuance is not clogged with satiety. Pleasures, whose review fills not the cheek with blushing, being honorable and glorious as the immortal soul, and pure as the joys of angels. Pleasures, whose consequences are not dangerous--to the body, by wasting its beauty, or preying on its health;--to the reputation, by fixing upon it an indelible stain;--to the estate by making a shipwreck of it in the horrid gulf of prodigality. Especially not dangerous to the soul, by darkening the mind, fattening the heart, searing the conscience, and exposing to eternal vengeance.--Pleasures, whose duration is not short; that can live in the winter of adversity, illuminate the valley of death, and pass into eternity.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On Pleasure", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
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"
Business first, then pleasure.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Richelieu
Consider the nature of pleasure. It is a maligned word, meaning merely the innocence and intrinsicality of being, each thing and each state taken as final and for itself. A cup of coffee destroys your sadness.
DELMORE SCHWARTZ
"Pleasure", Selected Poems (1938-1958): Summer Knowledge
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
JOHN KEATS
"Fancy"
Pleasure is an ineffable something known only to the possessor and capable of being rated only by him: for certainly one who does not share a secret cannot, in his unblissful ignorance, assume to pronounce upon its value.
WILSON D. WALLIS
The Journal of Philosophy, July 3, 1919
I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Guardian, July 18, 1713
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 contrast is between necessity and pleasure. To satisfy the first is legitimate and, in fact, obligatory; to renounce the second is possible, even meritorious. The problem is that the line of demarcation between necessity and pleasure is very fine and often imperceptible; when one eats or drinks, the two go together, inextricably bound. It is precisely from this observation that a culture of deep suspicion developed in Christian tradition toward the daily gestures of eating and drinking, so innocuous at first glance.
MASSIMO MONTANARI & BETH ARCHER BROMBERT
Medieval Tastes: Food, Cooking, and the Table
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
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
We ought to aim at such pleasures as follow labor, not at those which precede it.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Every nerve that can thrill with pleasure, can also agonize with pain.
HORACE MANN
A Few Thoughts for a Young Man
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
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"
Pleasure is the sun of the morning, the cloud of the meridian, and the storm of the evening.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
As to the lawful pleasures of the mind, the heart, or the senses, indulge in them with gratitude and moderation, drawing up sometimes in order to punish yourself, without waiting to be forced to do so by necessity.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
Letters to Young Men
Pleasure is the flower that fades.
STANISLAS JEAN DE MARQUIS BOUFFLERS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Grandma's Soul