"By annihilating the desires,
you annihilate the mind.
Every man without passions has within him
no principle of action, nor motive to act."
-Claude Adrien Helvétius

"We trifle when we assign
limits to our desires,
since nature hath set none."
-Christian Nestell Bovee

"Every human mind is
a great slumbering power
until awakened by a keen desire
and by definite resolution to do."
-Edgar F. Roberts

"There is one thing even more vital
to science than intelligent methods;
and that is, the sincere desire to find
out the truth, whatever it may be."
-Charles Sanders Pierce

"The stoical scheme
of supplying our wants
by lopping off our desires,
is like cutting off our feet
when we want shoes."
-Jonathan Swift

"To fall in love is easy,
even to remain in it is not difficult;
our human loneliness is cause enough.
But it is a hard quest worth making
to find a comrade through whose
steady presence one becomes steadily
the person one desires to be."
-Anna Louise Strong

"Desire is the essence of a man."
-Benedict Spinoza