Tao Te Ching
Pleasure
One of the 4 Worldly Dharmas—along with Fame, Fortune, and Power—Pleasure ranks up there as one of the most powerful influences over our lives and decisions. The less thoughtful make choices based on short-term over long-term results; the more strategic and aware make the more mid- and long-range choices; but still, the materialistic approach to pleasure prevails reeking havoc in its wake. How many leaders, countries, movements, civilizations, and everyday people have crashed into corruption, ignominy, and suffering by following the siren-calls of pleasure-seeking? On the other hand, how many lives have been ruined, burned at the stake, and sentenced to mental institutions because of religions, cultures, and politicians trying to control and curb this very natural inclination? Closely linked to the Desire defined by the Buddha as the cause of Suffering, our experience of and relationship to Pleasure is ignored only at our great peril.
Quotes (84)
“Meanwhile let us two, here in the hut, over our food and wine, regale ourselves with the unhappy memories that each can recall. For a man who has been through bitter experiences and traveled far can enjoy even his sufferings after a time.”
“Chasing fame, fortune, pleasure and power only drives us crazy.”
“Those who live for pleasure alone will certainly fall like weak trees in a great wind.”
“Don’t chase after fame, fortune, pleasure and power; but instead, find true joy.”
“If you ask what it is that has caused the ruler to neglect the affairs of government and the humble man to neglect his tasks, the answer is music... if the rulers, ministers, and gentlemen of the world truly desire to promote what is beneficial to the world and eliminate what is harmful, they must prohibit and put a stop to this thing called music!”
“Whom, then, do I call educated?... those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not unduly overcome by their misfortunes”
“Wise leaders never indulge in wild pleasures without restraint. Pursuing passions without limit is like delighting in wine without moderation and leads to similar results.”
“a sage doesn't allow like or dislikes to get in and do him harm - he just lets things be the way they are”
“We hold the greatest pleasure to be that which is perceived when all pain is removed... And when we no longer feel pain, we no longer need pleasure.”
“Pleasure has no fellowship with virtue... of all the enemies that reason has, pleasure is the chief.”
“What madness has seized you?... Everyone is dragged on by their favorite pleasure.
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“There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.”
“Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.”
“Do what is useful even if painful,
And what is both useful and pleasurable,
Not what gives pleasure but is of no use.”
“People scorn the poor who have no wealth. They also criticize the rich who have it. What pleasure can derive from keeping company with people such as these, so difficult to please?”
“The phenomenal appearance of empty space transcends pleasure into pure joy and happiness.”
“In ignorance, samsara and nirvana are separate; in realization, they are the union of pure pleasure.”
“All pleasure and pain arise in the mind so cultivate mind’s nature; awaken consciousness in the heart’s core.”
“Though I enjoy sense pleasures, I have these confidences that I am not fettered by them.”
“A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!”
“Pleasure is liking and loving. We never for a moment cease to seek it... That we are forever the servants of our likes and dislikes is entirely for the sake of pleasure and pain.”
“As there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none more lasting, none gentler or more faithful; none that accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety.”
“Gold, houses, estates, garments, paintings... offer a mutable and superficial pleasure but books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, join with us in a living and intense intimacy.”
“Mind itself—that is, the nature of awakened mind—is pure like space, and so is without birth or death, pleasure or pain.”
“Heaven would indeed be heaven if lovers were there permitted as much enjoyment as they had experienced on earth.”
“Heaven would indeed be heaven if lovers were there permitted as much enjoyment as they had experienced on earth.”
“Curiosity—the desire to know why and how—is a lust of the mind that exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.”
“Leave off hungry. One ought to remove even the bowl of nectar from the lips… Little and good is twice good… Too much pleasure is always dangerous.”
“If you enter by the gate of pleasure, you leave by the door of sorrow.”
“Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.”
“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is a hook beneath it... Pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us.”
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure… They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.”
“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 forever.”
“And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.”
“Sexual desire—especially when concentrated with fixated infatuation on a particular person—becomes the quintessence of this world's delusion because it promises so excessively much and delivers so miserably little.”
“Tortured by the agonizing pleasure,
Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure
Was soothed by mischief since the world begun”
“She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might”
“Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them, the timid keyboard, the fingering so changeful and capricious which befits it.”
“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”
“In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect — its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions — its purpose being pleasure.”
“The best piety is to enjoy—when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth's character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates.”
“All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”
“I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure.”
“If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.”
“Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions.”
“Since barbarism has its pleasures, it naturally has its apologists.”
“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”
“Pleasures are like photographs. In their presence, we only see the negative which we develop later at home in our inner darkroom, whose door is always closed to us as long as we are around others.”
“as long as one is in any way held by the domination of cupiditas, the veil is not lifted, and the heights of consciousness, empty of content and free of illusion, are not reached, nor can any trick nor any deceit bring it about.”
“one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure. Every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it.”
“Civilization begins at the moment sport begins. As long as the struggles for preservation—to protect itself from its enemies, maintain itself upon the surface of the earth—civilization cannot be born. It is born the moment that life satisfies its primary needs and begins to enjoy a little leisure.”
“Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content... Let us play is as good as Let us pray, and the results are more assured.”
“There is much pleasure in the simple work of the hands, and, as the old rabbis taught, even the scholar will find that the possession of a trade may save him from selling his conclusions for an income.”
“Vulgar hedonists took in vain, and brought into disrepute, the name of Epicurus, and for this offence were chided by the austere Epicurean poet, Lucretius.”
“There are no roots of heaven in pleasure, there are only roots of indifference and pain.”
“What matters most are the simple pleasures so abundant that we can all enjoy them...Happiness doesn't lie in the objects we gather around us. To find it, all we need to do is open our eyes.”
“Desire killed that man, as desire has killed many before and after him If this earth should ever be destroyed, it will be by desire, by the lust of pleasure and self-gratification, by greed.”
“the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life... human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice”
“Films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult…. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary”
“Marriage is not a love affair. Marriage is a comitment to that which you are, that person is literally your other half. A love affair is a relationship for pleasure and when it gets to be unpleasureable, it's off. Marriage is a life commitment , the prime concern of your life. If it's not the prime concern, you're not married.”
“we are most happy when good things are expected to happen, not when they are happening. We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing to meet them that we can't slow down enough to enjoy them when they come.”
“All human beings are at war with themselves... The war is between the way we think we should be and who we are... between wanting pleasure (or ease or success) and being with the truth that life doesn't care about our pleasure (or ease or success)... We are all caught in the feeling that we should be some other way.”
“Desire creates love through attachment to pleasurable circumstances: love creates anger by controlling through grasping. The basis of both is ignorance which creates only darkness by confusing love with anger through grasping.”
“Whatever we experience in our life – pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness… or whatever – is just purely memories… a phantom… things have a dreamlike quality.”
“Pleasure is designed by natural selection to evaporate so that the ensuing dissatisfaction will get us to pursue more pleasure.”
“St. Augustine, the first intellectual superstar of Christian theology spent his early years 'in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures' and 'hellish pleasures', and fathered a son with a woman he never married and then abandoned... His formulation of the doctrine of original sin made clear that ever since Adam's fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, humankind had been corrupted by the filthy allures of lust.”
“it is almost impossible to legislate away the desire for hedonistic pleasures. We are drawn to hedonism like moths to torchlight.”
“For more than 2,000 years there has been a long war against pleasure... Carpe diem hedonism was far more than the pursuit of sensory pleasures: it was a subversive political act with the power to reshape the cultural landscape.”
“It's the suburbs, where conformity trumps comfort... They are eerily similar in frame, these homes, though they've all got different paint jobs and siding and hedges.”
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