#desires

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy. ↗

— Thomas B. Macaulay

#desires #government #happy #how #knows

There is no man who desires as passionately as a Russian. If we could imprison a Russian desire beneath a fortress, that fortress would explode. ↗

— Joseph de Maistre

#could #desire #desires #explode #fortress

The butterfly startled at Mary’s gesture and floated up, drifting on the breeze, its wings sparkling blue and bright in the late afternoon sunshine. Silence watched it, enthralled, and then her eyes met Michael’s. A corner of his mouth cocked up. “Welcome home, m’love. ↗

— Elizabeth Hoyt

#mickey #scandalous-desires #silence #love

Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#love #relationships #restraint #rules #love

He watched her retreat, his eyes lazy, and his body unmoving. A trickle of blood seeped slowly from the corner of his mouth. He let her get nearly out of the room before he spoke, “I may not have the right, Silence, me love,” he drawled so soft she nearly didn’t catch the words. “But I would’ve listened to ye. I would’ve believed ye. ↗

— Elizabeth Hoyt

#mickey #scandalous-desires #silence #love

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 Helvetius

#action #annihilate #annihilating #desires #every

Once your past no longer has the power to define you, your future is, quite literally, yours for the taking. Every single beautiful thing you could possibly want or imagine will be yours. ↗

— Dan Pearce

#future #goals #our-pasts #overcoming-fear #past

Beyond all vanities, fights, and desires, omnipotent silence lies. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#books #dejan-stojanovic #desires #fights #literature

I get what it's like to want something, but to try and force yourself to really believe that you don't. ↗

— Cora Carmack

#desires #losing-it #repression #unrequited-love #love

As I said, I don’t expect you to understand—” “And I don’t,” he cut in. “Ye ask how I can live a life that I know will end with the hangman’s noose. Well, at least I am alive. Ye might as well have climbed inside yer husband’s coffin and let yerself be buried with his corpse.” Her hand flashed out before she’d thought about it, the smack against his cheek loud in the little courtyard. Silence had her eyes locked with Michael’s, her chest rising and falling swiftly, but she was aware that Bert and Harry had looked up. Even Mary and Lad had paused in their play. Without taking his gaze from hers, Michael reached out and grasped her hand. He raised her hand to his lips and softly kissed the center of her palm. He looked at her, her hand still at his lips. “Don’t take to yer grave afore yer time, Silence, m’love. ↗

— Elizabeth Hoyt

#mickey #scandalous-desires #silence #life