quotations about lust
Something like lust, something like hatred, seems to hover in the air along the country roads, shifting like mist or steam, but always there, gripping the city streets like fog, making every corner a dangerous corner.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
ANDREW MARVELL
"To His Coy Mistress"
The delights of lust terminate in languishment and dejection; the object thou burnest for nauseates with satiety, and no sooner hadst thou possessed it, but thou wert weary of its presence.
R. DODSLEY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Lust is an immoderate wantonness of the flesh, a sweet poison, a cruel pestilence; a pernicious poison, which weakeneth the body of man, and effeminateth the strength of the heroic mind.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
Lust is an enemy to the purse, a foe to the person, a canker to the mind, a corrosive to the conscience, a weakness of the wit, a besotter of the senses, and finally, a mortal bane to all the body.
PLINY
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical
I don't know why people are afraid of lust. Then I can imagine that they are very afraid of me, for I have a great lust for everything. A lust for life, a lust for how the summer-heated street feels beneath my feet, a lust for the touch of another's skin on my skin ... a lust for everything. I even lust after cake. Yes, I am very lusty and very scary.
C. JOYBELL C.
attributed, Best Quotes About Human Nature
Lust is a captivity of the reason and an enraging of the passions; it wakens every night and rages every day; it desires passionately, and prosecutes violently; it hinders business and distracts counsel; it brings jealousies, and enkindles wars; it sins against the body and weakens the soul; it defiles the temple, and drives the Holy Spirit forth.
JEREMY TAYLOR
Selections from the works of Taylor, Hooker, Barrow, South, Latimer, Brown, Milton, and Bacon
Lust is never satisfied, any more than fire is satisfied with fuel, or the main ocean with receiving the rivers, or the empire of death with the dying of men and animals.
W. ALEXANDER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Lust is a sprightly servant,
Gallant where wines are poured;
Love is a bitter master,
Love is an iron lord.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
Young Adventure
I don't think we can ever learn much from ultra-sensitive, shifty faces, skilled in disguise, that hide themselves in lust, as beasts hide to die.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
As pills that are outwardly fair, gilt, and rolled in sugar, but within are full of bitterness, even so lustful pleasure is no sooner hatched but remorse is at hand, ready to supplant her.
DANIEL CAWDRAY
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical
Love is nothing but lust misspelled.
DAN SIMMONS
Olympos
Natural freedoms are but just:
There's something generous in mere lust.
JOHN WILMOT
A Ramble in St. James Park
Lust leads to love.
JEWISH PROVERB
If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be.
MARQUIS DE SADE
The 120 Days of Sodom
Lust is a vice sooner condemned than banished; easily spoke against, but yet it will fawn as smoothly on our flesh as Circe on the Graecian travelers, when she detained them in the shape of beasts.
W. MASON
attributed, Day's Collacon
I believe I could drink you dry.
CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE
Lust
What's wrong with lust? Everybody lusts. To lust is human.
ARTHUR HERZOG
Body Parts: A Collection of Short Stories
Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain,
But lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.
Love surfeits not; lust like a glutton dies:
Love is all truth; lust full of forged lies.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Venus and Adonis