Hedonistic Tendencies Quotes

I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.

Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

Our age is very cheap and intelligible. Unroof any house, and you shall find it. The well-being consists in having a sufficiency of coffee and toast, with a daily newspaper; a well glazed parlor, with marbles, mirrors and centre-table; and the excitement of a few parties and a few rides in a year.

The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as the greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.

The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he was aware of devastating desires—to rush places in fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. ... He perceived that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. —chapter 8

Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.

O youth! thou often tearest thy wings against the thorns of voluptuousness.

The problem with life is, we often do things that will ultimately be self-destructive and make us unhappy, yet in that moment it seems like the best idea in the world. You have to be careful of moments - they're tricksy things.

Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.

Watch for a wild boy of no particular clan, ready for anything, always armed. Prefers fighting to toil, drink to fighting, chasing women to booze or battle: may attempt all three concurrently.

I succumbed to hedonism.

She could see so clearly now that he was only a childish fancy, no more important really than her spoiled desire for the aquamarine earbobs she had coaxed out of Gerald. For, once she owned the earbobs, they had lost their value, as everything except money lost its value once it was hers.

Interest has the security, though not the virtue of a principle. As the world goes, it is the surest side; for men daily leave both relations and religion to follow it.

I do still see that my nature is not to be quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all things, though yet in the middle of it, it has reluctances after my business, which is neglected by my following my pleasure. However musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.

There's something wildy decadent about the young-star lifestyle, and I just don't really see the point. I got my partying out of my system in college.

The life of our class, of the wealthy and the learned, was not only repulsive to me but had lost all meaning. The sum of our action and thinking, of our science and art, all of it struck me as the overindulgences of a spoiled child.

The world is devoted to physical science, because it believes theses discoveries will increase its capacity of luxury and self-indulgence. But the pursuit of science only leads to the insoluble.

The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.

I'm nothing if not a literary hedonist.

Pleasures can undo a man at any time, if yielded to.

Selfish hedonism is not a pejorative. It is a description - an exactly accurate description of what is involved in homosexual relations.