Czeslaw Milosz Quotes

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.

What one hopes for is always better than what one has.

The more you have, the more you want L'appetit vient en mangeant

Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

What is it in my makeup that makes me grab any offer and fly around the world? Will I ever be satisfied? Can't I ever just rest?

We are perverse creatures and never satisfied.

Whenever I was with a woman, I always sort of want another one. So there was always another one. I can't explain this.

I think it's in human nature to want to have more, to compete with the other and, at some level, to be dissatisfied if someone else has more than you.

Perhaps the thing that makes humans truly unique on Earth is that we are never satisfied with our situation; maybe that is what's taken us so far.

What you've done is done. You've got a goal you never reach, and it's always farther away. It keeps you walking. I don't want to sit down.

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

I always want more, and that's just my life.

Ambition has no rest!

Nothing is more certain than that improvement in human affairs is wholly the work of the uncontented characters.

The secret of progress, the perpetual satisfying of wants followed by the springing up of new wants, is the secret of individual unrest and disappointment.

… discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.

I'm always going to be looking for something artistically or whatever. I think that's part of being driven, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm unhappy.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

The basic human reaction to pleasure is not satisfaction, but rather craving for more. Hence, no matter what we achieve, it only increases our craving, not our satisfaction.

I will never be able to say 'Yeah, O.K., I'm good,' you know? I will always want more, and more, and more.