Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Calumny of Apelles (Sandro Botticelli)

Desire

Paragon of paradox, desire spans the range of human experience. As the Buddha so insightfully described, it’s a kind of desire at the root of our suffering. At the same time though, without the passion of desire, there would be no life, no inspiration, no transforming evolution. In the earliest of recorded times, the Sumerian garden-of-eden story depicted the serpent and desire as wisdom and the power of life. Also sacred in the Buddhist, Hindu, and Native American traditions, the snake and desire were vilified in the Old Testament as part of the transformation from matriarchal to patriarchal society. The goddess symbolism of old was vilified and the sacred feminine principle tarnished with descriptions of sinful seducer.

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Quotes (108)

“Ah, no wonder the men of Troy and Argives under arms have suffered years of agony all for her, for such a woman. Beauty, terrible beauty!”

Homer 1
Primogenitor of Western culture
from Iliad

Themes: Beauty Desire

“As our desire, so is our will; as our will, so are our acts. Our desire determines what we will become.”

Yājñavalkya 1
One of the earliest non-dual philosophers

Themes: Desire

“No holy place existed without us then, no woodland, no dance, no sound… I prayed one word: ‘I want.’”

Sappho 612 – 570 BCE
“The Poetess” and most famous Greek woman

“Always wanting, we are blinded and only see what we want.”

Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Shan Dao, chapter #1
(Lǎozǐ)
from Tao Te Ching 道德经 Dàodéjīng

Themes: Desire Greed

“Less treasure, less theft, less desire, less delusion”

Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Shan Dao, chapter #3
(Lǎozǐ)
from Tao Te Ching 道德经 Dàodéjīng

Focused on uncontrived awareness, not seduced by hope and fear, grasping and fixation; they are not swayed by a desire for change.”

Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Shan Dao, chapter #15
(Lǎozǐ)
from Tao Te Ching 道德经 Dàodéjīng

Themes: Change Desire Hope

“Shut out from sight the things of desire so that the people's hearts shall not be disturbed.”

Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Lin Yutang, chapter 3
(Lǎozǐ)
from Tao Te Ching 道德经 Dàodéjīng

Themes: Hope Desire

“As long as people desire Enlightenment and grasp after it, it means that delusion is still with them.”

Buddha गौतम बुद्ध 563 – 483 BCE
(Siddhartha Shakyamuni Gautama)
Awakened Truth
from Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra

“The struggle against desire is difficult, because it must be purchased at the soul's expense.”

Heraclitus Ἡράκλειτος 535 – 475 BCE
(of Ephesus, the "Weeping Philosopher")
A Greek Buddha

“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate… The hottest love has the coldest end.”

Socrates 469 – 399 BCE
One of the most powerful influences on Western Civilization

Themes: Desire Hate

42. Children of the Way

“By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.”

Democritus Dēmókritos 460 – 370 BCE
Father of modern science and greatest of ancient philosophers

Themes: Poverty Desire

46. Enough

“To want nothing is godlike; and the less we want, the nearer we approach the divine.”

Xenophon of Athens Ξενοφῶν 1
General, Socratic biographer, philosopher
from Memorabilia

“It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.”

Diogenes 412 – 323 BCE via Will Durant
(of Sinope)
from Life of Greece

Themes: Desire

20. Unconventional Mind

“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”

Aristotle Ἀριστοτέλης 382 – 322 BCE

Themes: Desire Enemy Victory

“If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out.”

Aristotle Ἀριστοτέλης 382 – 322 BCE

Themes: Desire Letting Go

46. Enough

“a sage doesn't allow like or dislikes to get in and do him harm - he just lets things be the way they are”

Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE via Stephen Mitchell
(Zhuangzi)

Themes: Desire Pleasure

“Don’t spoil what you have by desiring what you don’t. Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Epicurus ɛpɪˈkjɔːrəs 341 – 270 BCE
Western Buddha
from On Nature

Themes: Desire Hope

9. Know When to Stop

“I desire not what is ready to hand, but long for whatever is kept under lock and key.”

Philodemus Φιλόδημος 110 – 35 BCE via W. R. Paton
(of Gadara)
from Epigrams

Themes: Desire

“We fail to take into account the sources of our desires when we make moral choices, not recognizing, for example, that the desire for great wealth or reputation is so empty and vain.”

Philodemus Φιλόδημος 110 – 35 BCE
(of Gadara)

Themes: Desire Wealth

“Men suffer the worst evils for the sake of the most alien desires.”

Philodemus Φιλόδημος 110 – 35 BCE via Giovanni Indelli
(of Gadara)
from On Choices and Avoidances

Themes: Desire Evil

“A man who has never been bewitched by the lovely smile of a woman must be a Buddha made of wood, metal, or stone.”

Anonymous 1
Freedom from the narrow boxes defined by personal history
from Japanese proverb

Themes: Desire

“So long as the object of our craving is unattained, it seems more precious than anything. But once it is ours, we crave for something else.”

Lucretius 99 – 55 BCE via R.E. Latham, Shan Dao
(Titus Carus)
from De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)

Themes: Desire Hope

“Do the gods light this fire in our hearts or does each man's mad desire become his god?”

Virgil 70 – 19 BCE
(Publius Vergilius Maro)
from Aeneid

Themes: Desire God

“I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.”

Ovid oʊvɪd 43 BCE – 18 CE
(Publius Ovidius Naso)
Great poet and major influence on the Renaissance, Humanism, and world literature

“Curb your desire—don’t set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need.”

Epictetus Ἐπίκτητος 55 – 135 CE
from Discourses of Epictetus, Ἐπικτήτου διατριβαί

Themes: Desire

“First, abandon all thought of action. Then see desirable objects as mere concepts, delusory mental pictures.”

Nagarjuna नागर्जुन 1 via Keith Dowman

Themes: Wu Wei Desire

“When we are free of desire, we see where things begin. When we are subject to desire, we see where things end.”

Wang Bi 王弼 226 – 534 CE via Red Pine, Shan Dao

Themes: Desire

“mists fumed up and overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love, from the fog of lustfulness.”

Augustine ɔːɡəstiːn 354 – 430 CE
(Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, Augustine of Hippo)
from Confessions

Themes: Sex Desire

“People of this world are deluded. They're always longing for something - always, in a word, seeking.”

Bodhidharma 菩提達磨 1
(Daruma)

Themes: Delusion Desire

“The Way is not difficult for those without preferences.”

Jianzhi Sengcan 鑑智僧璨 529 – 606 CE
(Jiànzhì Sēngcàn)

“And once we are free of desire, we must also forget the desire to be free of desire. Serene and at peace, the ruler does nothing, while the world takes care of itself.”

Xuanzong 武隆基 685 – 756 CE
(Hsuan-Tsung or Wu Longji)

Themes: Desire

37. Nameless Simplicity

“A wild dog with honey rubbed on its nose madly devours whatever it sees.”

Lūipa ལཱུ་ཨི་པ། 1 via Keith Dowman
(“The Fish-Gut Eater” )
Mahasiddha #1
from Masters of Mahamudra

Themes: Desire

53. Shameless Thieves

“There is no buddha, no dharma, no training and no realization - what are you so hotly chasing?”

Rinzai Gigen 臨済義玄 1 via Irmgard Schloegl
(Línjì Yìxuán)
from Zen Teachings of Rinzai (Record of Rinzai), Irmgard Schloegl translation 1976

Themes: Emptiness Desire

29. Not Doing

“I desire not to desire, for my will is without value, since I am ignorant in any case.”

Abu Yazid al-Bisṭāmī بایزید بسطامی‎‎ 804 – 874 CE

Themes: Desire

“Desire is like the child of a barren woman.”

Aciṅta ཨ་ཙིངྟ་།། 862 – 912 CE via Keith Dowman
("The Avaricious Hermit")
Mahasiddha #38

Themes: Desire

“From moment then to moment their desire
Gained strength, and wisdom fled before love's fire;
Passion engulfed them, and these lovers lay
Entwined together till the break of day.”

Ferdowsi فردوسی 940 – 1020 CE
(Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi)
"undisputed giant of Persian literature"
from Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (977–1010 CE)

Themes: Sex Desire

“The true nature of passions has turned out to be the sublime knowledge of emancipation.”

Tilopa 988 – 1069 CE

“Even when passion and aggression arise, I have no anxiety. I have confidence in knowing them as self-liberated.”

Marpa Lotsawa 1012 – 1097 CE via Nalanda Translation Committee

“The essential way is to focus on one thing and in action find absolute peace with no desire; impartial, straightforward, tranquil, and all-embracing.”

Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 1017 – 1073 CE via Shan Dao
(Chou Tun-i)
from Penetrating the Book of Changes

“How long, how long, in infinite pursuit of this and that endeavor and dispute?”

Omar Khayyám 1048 – 1131 CE via Edward Fitzgerald
Persian Astronomer-Poet, prophet of the here and now

from Rubaiyat

Themes: Desire

“Desire makes slaves out of kings, and patience makes kings out of slaves.”

Al-Ghazali أبو حامد محمد بن محمد الطوسي الغزالي 1058 – 1111 CE
(Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali)
Philosopher of Sufism

“Without judgment evaluation or significance what is there to be desired.”

Hóngzhì Zhēngjué 宏智正覺 1091 – 1157 CE via Stephen H. Wolinsky
(Shōgaku)
from Book of Equanimity

Themes: Hope Desire

“illuminate all conditions... clear and desireless, the wind in the pines and the moon in the water are content in their elements.”

Hóngzhì Zhēngjué 宏智正覺 1091 – 1157 CE via Dan Leighton
(Shōgaku)
from Cultivating the Emplty Field

Themes: Desire

“Like a rainbow dissolving into the sky, birth, life and death have no hold”

Kālapa ཀཱ་ལ་པ། 1 via Keith Dowman
("The Handsome Madman")
Mahasiddha #27
from Masters of Mahamudra

Themes: Desire

50. Claws and Swords

“The wise know they have everything they need within themselves. Hence, they do not seek anything outside themselves.”

Li Xizhai 1 via Red Pine
(Li Hsi-Chai)
from Tao-te-chen-ching yi-chieh

Themes: Desire Hope

44. Fame and Fortune

“Abandon your desire and take on the light of wisdom, for that desire would soon lead to disappointment.”

Rumi مولانا جلال‌الدین محمد بلخی 1207 – 1283 CE via Helminski and Rezwani
(Rumi Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī)
from Love's Ripening

Themes: Desire

“Verily, the roots of passion are deep, and remote its sources. It can hardly be uprooted, and young and old, wise and foolish are alike its slaves.”

Yoshida Kenkō 兼好 1284 – 1350 CE via Sir George Bailey Sansome
Inspiration of self-reinvention
from Harvest of Leisure

Themes: Desire Sex

“A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.”

Petrarch 1304 – 1374 CE

Themes: Desire Wealth

46. Enough

“You neither desire wealth nor greatness; and, indeed, I value and admire such a man much more than I do any of the great men in the world.”

Thomas More 1478 – 1535 CE
from Utopia

Themes: Desire Wealth

“After making me fall for you so hard, where are you going? Until the day I see you, no repose: my life, like a fish washed on shore, flails in agony.”

Meera 1498 – 1546 CE
(Mirabai, Meera Bai )
Inspiring poet, cultural freedom inspiration

Themes: Desire

“We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.”

Montaigne 1533 – 1592 CE
Grandfather of the Enlightenment

Themes: Desire

29. Not Doing

“To arrive at being everything, desire to be nothing.”

John of the Cross 1542 – 1591 CE

Themes: Desire One Taste

“Those who seek the Tao begin by using wisdom to eliminate desires… Once their desires are gone, they eliminate wisdom… Thus by doing nothing, the sage can do great things… those who would rule the world should know the value of not being busy.”

Deqing 1546 – 1623 CE
(Te-Ch’ing)

48. Unlearning

“Choice... momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream; brief as the lightening in the collied night.”

William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616 CE
from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Themes: Desire

“Leave something to wish for. That way you will not be miserable from too much happiness… If one possessed all, all would be disillusion and discontent… Surfeits of happiness are fatal… when desire dies, fear is born.”

Balthasar Gracian 1601 – 1658 CE

Themes: Delusion Desire

44. Fame and Fortune

“Desire is the very essence of man.”

Baruch Spinoza 1632 – 1677 CE

Themes: Carpe diem Desire

“Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age, or vanity to a woman.”

Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745 CE
"Foremost prose satirist in the English language"

from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)

Themes: Desire Power

“There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.”

Diderot 1713 – 1784 CE

Themes: Happiness Desire

“From desire I plunge to its fulfillment, where I long once more for desire.”

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 1749 – 1832 CE

“The best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew, and leave us nothing but grief and pain for promised joy.”

Robert Burns 1759 – 1796 CE

“The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.”

Madame de Staël 1766 – 1817 CE
(Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein)
"The greatest woman of her time"

Themes: Desire

“The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834 CE
from Table Talk, 1827

“A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.”

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE

Themes: Freedom Desire

10. The Power of Goodness

“Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion history art and romance would be useless.”

Balzac 1799 – 1850 CE
(Honoré de Balzac)

Themes: Desire

“As men's prayers are a disease of the intellect, so are their creeds a disease of the will.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882 CE
Champion of individualism
from Self Reliance

Themes: Desire Belief

“what trances of torments does the man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.”

Herman Melville 1819 – 1891 CE
from Moby Dick or The Whale

Themes: Desire Hate

“Now he found out a new thing - namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”

Mark Twain 1835 – 1910 CE
(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
America’s most famous author

Themes: Desire Strategy

53. Shameless Thieves

“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

Henry James 1843 – 1916 CE

Themes: Doubt Desire

“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it”

Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900 CE

Themes: Desire

46. Enough

“There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.”

George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950 CE
UK playwright second only to Shakespeare

Themes: Desire

“Wisdom does not consist in banishing passion, but in purifying it.”

Elbert Hubbard 1856 – 1915 CE
from A Thousand and One Epigrams

Themes: Desire

“There is nothing like desire for preventing the things one says from having any resemblance to the things in one's mind.”

Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922 CE
Apostle of Ordinary Mind
from In Search of Lost Time

Themes: Desire

“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.”

Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 CE
Insightful shamanistic scientist

Themes: Desire Pleasure

50. Claws and Swords

“You find yourself in your desire… wherever the creative power of desire is, there springs the soil’s own seed. But do not forget to wait.”

Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 CE via Sonu Shamdasani
Insightful shamanistic scientist
from Red Book, Liber Novus

Themes: Patience Desire

“Only he who desires is amiable and not he who is satiated.”

Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955 CE
Deep, psychologically insightful author
from Confessions of Felix Krull (1954)

“All that is best for us comes of itself into our hands—but if we strive to take, it perpetually eludes us.”

Ananda Coomaraswamy குமாரசுவாமி 1877 – 1947 CE
Perennial philosophy's Citizen of the World
from The Dance of Shiva (1918)

Themes: Wu Wei Desire

“Desire is when you do what you want, will is when you can do what you do not want.”

Ouspensky Пётр Демья́нович Успе́нский 1878 – 1947 CE
(Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii)

Themes: Desire

“All that produces longing in the heart deprives the heart of freedom.”

Inayat Khan 1882 – 1927 CE

Themes: Desire Hope

48. Unlearning

“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition.”

Nikos Kazantzakis 1883 – 1957 CE
from Zorba the Greek

20. Unconventional Mind

“I would make health a required course in every year of schooling... have our physicians [teach] preventative health in the classroom... form follows function, functin follows desire, and desire is the essence of life.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Fallen Leaves

“Our human life is always a hell, says the poet (Dante) until wisdom (Virgil) purges us of evil desire, and love (Beatrice) lifts us to happiness and peace.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE via John Little
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, 1968

Themes: Peace Desire

“Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and the beholder.”

Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE

Themes: Beauty Desire

“Regard life with passion to see its manifest forms, do away with passion to see the Secret of Life.”

Lín Yǔtáng 林語堂 1895 – 1976 CE via Lin Yutang, Shan Dao
from Wisdom of Laotse

Themes: Desire Hope

1. The Unnamed

“I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires... Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine”

F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896 – 1940 CE
Prototype of "Jazz Age" exuberance
from Great Gatsby

“Without desire you are dead. But with low desires you are a ghost. Shun not desire; see only that it flows into the right channels.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj 1897 – 1981 CE via Maurice Frydman
Householder guru of non-duality
from I Am That

Themes: Desire

“Surely it is the right wish that draws us to the right place. Nothing of importance happens accidentally in our life.”

Anagarika​ (Lama) Govinda 1898 – 1985 CE
(Ernst Hoffmann)
Pioneer of Tibetan Buddhism to the West

Themes: Karma Desire

“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.”

John Fire Lame Deer 1903 – 1976 CE via Richard Erdoes

31. Victory Funeral

“As long as you think, ‘I must attain something special,’ you are actually not doing anything. When you give up, when you no longer want something… then you do something.”

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi 1904 – 1971 CE

Themes: Desire

40. Returning

“Try not to achieve anything special. You already have everything in your own pure quality.”

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi 1904 – 1971 CE
from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Themes: Desire

“Passion and marriage are essentially irreconcilable. Their origins and their ends make them mutually exclusive. Their co-existence in our midst constantly raises insoluble problems, and the strife thereby engendered constitutes a persistent danger for every one of our social safeguards.”

Denys de Rougemont 1906 – 1985 CE
Non-conformist leader, influential cultural theorist
from Love in the Western World

Themes: Marriage Desire

Unless there are conscious efforts to the contrary, wants will always rise faster than the ability to meet them.”

E. F. Schumacher 1911 – 1977 CE
The “People's Economist”
from Good Work

Themes: Desire Hope

You can say the Jesus Prayer from now til doomsday but if you don't realize that the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment, I don't see how you'll ever even move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness.”

J. D. Salinger 1919 – 2010 CE via Zooey
from Franny and Zooey

Themes: Desire Integrity

“You can never get enough of what you don't really want.”

Huston Smith 1919 – 2016 CE

Themes: Greed Desire

“Grasping at things can only yield one of two results: Either the thing you are grasping at disappears, or you yourself disappear. It is only a matter of which occurs first.”

Goenka ဂိုအင်ကာ 1924 – 2013 CE
(Satya Narayan)
"The Man who Taught the World to Meditate"

Themes: Desire

“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.”

Thinley Norbu གདུང་སྲས་ཕྲིན་ལས་ནོར་བུ 1931 – 2011 CE
(Kyabjé Dungse)
from Magic Dance (1981)

“Sexual desires are usually not directly announced but concealed under a series of feints, gestures, styles of dress, and showy behavior. Seductions are staged, scripted, costumed... Like all finite play, it proceeds largely by deception.”

James P. Carse 1932 – 2020 CE
Thought-proving, influential, deep thinker
from Finite and Infinite Games

Themes: Desire Deception

“Desire, any sort of gaining idea only distorts and diminishes the natural progression of wisdom into enlightened society.”

Shan Dao 山道 1933 CE –

“When we find… something familiar, we are dying to get on to the next… and we rush. We are constantly looking for. We don’t really want to read the pages of life properly and we panic.”

Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Journey Without Goal

Themes: Desire

35. The Power of Goodness

“It’s okay. Everything is okay… Don’t rush; everything is going to be okay… Just cool it. You don’t have to do a complete job, all at once. If you go too far, if you are too hungry, you could become a cosmic monster. That message is very courageous, but very few people have the courage to say that.”

Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Journey Without Goal

Themes: Patience Desire

57. Wu Wei

“If we are passionate, if we are in love or in a lustful state, we begin to feel that there is an enormous amount of glue sprayed all over the world… We want to be stuck to things, to objects, wealth, money, friends… so we begin to spray this crude glue all over the place. We are asking to be stuck.”

Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Journey Without Goal

Themes: Desire Wealth Money

44. Fame and Fortune

“You can be totally entranced by the glow of something one minute, be willing to sacrifice everything to make it yours, but then a little time passes, or your perspective changes a bit, and all of a sudden you're shocked at how faded it appears.”

Haruki Murakami 1949 CE – via Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen

“So what is wild? What is wilderness? What are dreams but an internal wilderness and what is desire but a wildness of the soul?”

Louise Erdrich 1954 CE –

“Melting our attachment to self is the most powerful medication.”

Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche ཛི་གར་ཀོང་སྤྲུལ། 1964 CE –

13. Honor and Disgrace

“it is almost impossible to legislate away the desire for hedonistic pleasures. We are drawn to hedonism like moths to torchlight.”

Roman Krznaric 1
Practical, popular, modern philosopher

from Carpe Diem Regained

Themes: Desire Pleasure

“Continuously longing for what we don't have... We are restless with this scent of something better close by, but out of reach... That grass is better than this grass—all day long.”

Mingyur Rinpoche 1975 CE –
Modern-day Mahasiddha

from In Love With the World

Themes: Desire

“The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more.”

Yuval Harari יובל נח הררי‎ 1976 CE –
Israeli historian, professor, and philosopher

from Sapiens

Themes: Desire

“If we understand that our desires are not the magical manifestations of free choice but are rather the product of biochemical processes (influenced by cultural factors that are also beyond our control), we might be less preoccupied with them.”

Yuval Harari יובל נח הררי‎ 1976 CE –
Israeli historian, professor, and philosopher

from 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“When we see the world through the lens of desire, reality becomes fractured into what we want and what we do not want.”

Yi-Ping Ong 1978 CE –
from Tao Te Ching - Introduction and Notes

Themes: Desire Delusion

1. The Unnamed

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