#sire

Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end. ↗

— George Santayana

#desired #efforts #end #never #people

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. ↗

— Rick Santorum

#because #consequences #desire #disagree #i

Impatience translates itself into a desire to have something immediate done about it all, and, as is generally the case with impatience, resolves itself in the easiest way that lies ready to hand. ↗

— Edward Sapir

#case #desire #done #easiest #easiest way

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul. ↗

— Jean-Paul Sartre

#anything #deliver #desires #i #i am

This is why it's good manners to give gifts in wrappers: so that, for a moment, that beast in all of us that makes us feel alive and keeps us from becoming angels can be satisfied. While a gift is in a wrapper, it can be anything, even that one indescribable thing that will make us happy enough to die in peace. ↗

— Dexter Palmer

#dreams

What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other. ↗

— George Saunders

#desires #finds #found #know #most

I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization. ↗

— George Saunders

#desires #emotions #fears #fiction #get

I'm finding, as I get older, that I'm not much of a believer in redemption. I mean, I believe in redemption in real life - redemption does happen, and it's cool when it does - but I find myself getting leery of my desire for it in stories (especially my own). ↗

— George Saunders

#believer #cool #desire #does #especially

The mind is a machine that is constantly asking: What would I prefer? Close your eyes, refuse to move, and watch what your mind does. What it does is become discontent with that-which-is. A desire arises, you satisfy that desire, and another arises in its place. ↗

— George Saunders

#arises #asking #become #close #constantly

There's a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of it outgrowing him - or he starts to see it having a life of its own that doesn't have anything to do with his ego or his desire to 'be a good writer.' ↗

— George Saunders

#desire #ego #feeling #get #good