Quotes about Desires

We don't get what we wish and pray for, we get what we justly earn. Our wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with our thoughts and actions.

A man does not come to the alms-house or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power.

Not what he desires and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are handiest gratified and responded once they harmonize together with his mind and actions.

El alma atrae aquello que secretamente alberga; aquello que ama, y también aquello que teme; alcanza la cúspide de sus más preciadas aspiraciones, cae al nivel de sus más impuros deseos; y las circunstancias son los medios por los que el alma recibe lo que es suyo.

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours, that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires—and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.

Not what he wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions. In

Pray for your needs, not your greed.

The notion that everyone would like Christianity to be true, and therefore all atheists are brave men who have accepted the defeat of all their deepest desires, is simply impudent nonsense.

No man's body is as strong as his appetites, but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strength and contracting his capacities.

you can change your desires by changing what you give attention to.

Offer to God the sacrifice of never gathering any fruit. If He will that throughout your whole life you should feel a repugnance to suffering and humiliation—if He permit that all the flowers of your desires and of your good will should fall to the ground without any fruit appearing, do not worry. At the hour of death, in the twinkling of an eye, He will cause fair fruits to ripen on the tree of your soul.

Not every affection which seems good is to be immediately followed. Neither is every opposite affection to be immediately avoided. Sometimes it is expedient to use restraint even in good desires and wishes, lest through importunity you fall into distraction of mind, lest through want of discipline you become a stumbling block to others.