Aristotle Desire Quotations

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

[I]t is rather the case that we desire something because we believe it to be good than that we believe a thing to be good because we desire it. It is the thought that starts things off.

Yes the truth is that men's ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice.

Money is a guarantee that we may have what we want in the future. Though we need nothing at the moment it insures the possibility of satisfying a new desire when it arises.

Men in general desire the good and not merely what their fathers had.

Where perception is, there also are pain and pleasure, and where these are, there, of necessity, is desire.

All men desire by nature to know.

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

Bad people...are in conflict with themselves; they desire one thing and will another, like the incontinent who choose harmful pleasures instead of what they themselves believe to be good.

Wonder implies the desire to learn.

Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and, consequently, imperishable.

The law is reason unaffected by desire.

It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized.

Purpose is a desire for something in our own power, coupled with an investigation into its means.

No one who desires to become good will become good unless he does good things.

We should aim rather at leveling down our desires than leveling up our means.

If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good.

Man, as an originator of action, is a union of desire and intellect.

[this element], the seat of the appetites and of desire in general, does in a sense participate in principle, as being amenable and obedient to it

All people by nature desire to know. An example of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves.

Man by Nature desires to know.

It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.