Motivational Quotes

Pleasure

In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.

- Balzac, Honore De

Best Quotes about Pleasure

Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation; not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive you are free of them yourself is pleasant.

Lucretius

Pleasure is continually disappointed, reduced, deflated, in favor of strong, noble values: Truth, Death, Progress, Struggle, Joy, etc. Its victorious rival is Desire: we are always being told about Desire, never about Pleasure.

Barthes, Roland

The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.

Warner, Marina

Pleasure that isn't paid for is as insipid as everything else that's free.

Loos, Anita

I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

Edison, Thomas A.

Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.

Voltaire

A young man of pleasure is a man of pains.

Young

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do. The fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.

Little, Mary

Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful happiness must be tainted with poison.

Bataille, Georges

10.

Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with which a fine fruit fills the tongue; it is a great unending experience, which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the glory of all knowing. And not our acceptance of it is bad; the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as a stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as distraction instead of a rallying toward exalted moments.

Rilke, Rainer Maria

11.

As clouds are blown away by the wind, the thirst for material pleasures will be driven away by the utterance of the Lord's name.

Devi, Sri Sarada

12.

Pleasure is a shadow, wealth is vanity, and power a pageant; but knowledge is ecstatic in enjoyment, perennial in frame, unlimited in space and indefinite in duration.

Clinton, De Witt

13.

When pleasure interferes with business, give up business.

Proverb, American

14.

For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure --tangible material prosperity in this world --is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.

Butler, Samuel

15.

Pleasure is none, if not diversified.

Donne, John

16.

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. [Proverbs 9:17]

Bible

17.

Short lived pleasure is the parent of pain.

Proverb

18.

Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and the one nearest at hand.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

19.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

Franklin, Benjamin

20.

The eruption of lived pleasure is such that in losing myself I find myself; forgetting that I exist, I realize myself.

Vaneigem, Raoul

21.

Pleasure for one hour, a bottle of wine. Pleasure for one year a marriage; but pleasure for a lifetime, a garden.

Proverb, Chinese

22.

Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father's palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as celestial joys: having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the angels.

Traherne, Thomas

23.

Pleasure is the greatest incentive to evil.

Plato

24.

Work is often the father of pleasure.

Voltaire

25.

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

Bagehot, Walter

26.

We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.

Buffett, Warren

27.

To find recreation in amusement is not happiness.

Pascal, Blaise

28.

Whenever I meet with anything agreeable in this world it surprises me so much -- and pleases me so much (when my passions are not interested in one way or the other) that I go on wondering for a week to come.

Byron, Lord

29.

It is within the experience of everyone that when pleasure and pain reach a certain intensity they are indistinguishable.

Bennett, Arnold

30.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Aristotle

31.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

32.

Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle

33.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

Epictetus

34.

He is incapable of truly good action who finds not a pleasure in contemplating the good actions of others.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

35.

Everyone is dragged on by their favorite pleasure.

Virgil

36.

Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.

Chesterfield, Lord

37.

In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.

Balzac, Honore De

38.

It's true Heaven forbids some pleasures, but a compromise can usually be found.

Moliere

39.

Speed provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

Huxley, Aldous

40.

For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic, the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.

Branden, Nathaniel

41.

You are quaffing drink from a hundred fountains: whenever any of these hundred yields less, your pleasure is diminished. But when the sublime fountain gushes from within you, no longer need you steal from the other fountains.

Rumi, Jalal-Uddin

42.

People have many different kinds of pleasure. The real one is that for which they will forsake the others.

Proust, Marcel

43.

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

Mencken, H. L.

44.

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

Addison, Joseph

45.

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

Johnson, Samuel

46.

The rare pleasure of being seen for what one is, compensates for the misery of being it.

Drabble, Margaret

47.

A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion.

Antrim, Minna

48.

We all try to escape pain and death, while we seek what is pleasant.

Einstein, Albert

49.

The goal towards which the pleasure principle impels us -- of becoming happy -- is not attainable: yet we may not -- nay, cannot -- give up the efforts to come nearer to realization of it by some means or other.

Freud, Sigmund

50.

Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know. I admire lolling on a lawn by a water-lilied pond to eat white currants and see goldfish: and go to the fair in the evening if I'm good. There is not hope for that --one is sure to get into some mess before evening.

Keats, John