Desire Management Quotes

I spent a long part of my childhood repressing my more animalistic desire systems, and in a way, it permits me to do some of the stuff that I would want to be doing in a way that's more comfortable and doesn't break my internal rules. It expands the realm of possibility.

Those desires that do not bring pain if they are not satisfied are not necessary; and they are easily thrust aside whenever to satisfy them appears difficult or likely to cause injury.

Practice restraint over the following: appetite, first, as well as sleep, lust, and anger.

A man's wealth must be determined by the relation of his desires and expenditures to his income. If he feels rich on ten dollars, and has everything else he desires, he really is rich.

It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire

...after you stop wanting things is when having them won't make you go crazy. After you stop wanting them is when you can handle having them. Or before. But never during. If you get things when you really want them, you go crazy. Everything becomes distorted when something you really want is sitting in your lap.

Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.

You can learn not to want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.

To secure a contented spirit, measure your desires by your fortune, and not your fortune by your desires.

There are two ways to be rich - one in the abundance of your possessions and the other in the fewness of your wants.

A word of advice. If, as a young man, student, you are tormented by a desire for women, it is best to get out into the fresh air as much as possible.

I find no abhorring in my appetite.

For the first time, the object of what I want is more important than fulfilling my desires.

In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.

Your nafs (soul/desires) is your first battlefield. If you are victorious over it, then you will find the other battlefields easier.

What I've found is there is no barometer that allows you to chart when you're oversaturating a desire. You're left really trying to respond on a gut level, because by the time you might do research, it's already too late. There's also a healthy tension between what are very sound business objectives and a very amorphous desire to preserve what's special.

I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.

But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.

Learn to distinguish what you can and can't control. Within our control are our own opinions, aspirations, desires and the things that repel us. They are directly subject to our influence.

It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.

My third maxim was to try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts, so that after we have done our best regarding things external to us, everything in which we do not succeed is for us absolutely impossible.

The life of children, as much as that of intemperate men, is wholly governed by their desires.

If i can't have what i want . . . then my job is to want what i've got and be satisfied that at least there is something more to want

the way to wean any one from a desire is not by condemnation of it.

The more you are possession oriented, the less happy you will be. The less happy you are, the farther away from the Divine, from prayer, from gratitude you will be. Be austere. Live with the necessary and forget about desires; they are fantasies in the mind, ripples in the lake. They only disturb you, they can never lead you to any contentment.