60 Desire Quotes That Will Help You Better Understand This Powerful Feeling

Desire is a word that gets thrown a lot, but what is the full meaning of the word?

Desire means that someone has a powerful feeling, worthy or unworthy, that compels them to attain or possess something that is (in reality or imagination) within their grasp.

This could mean a desire to be a certain person, and these desire quotes for her and for him definitely show what that looks like.

However, love and people are not the only things that humans desire.

People also have a desire to succeed, achieve their dreams, and gather knowledge.

Some of the world’s most successful people share their thoughts on the desire to succeed in these quotes.

Great minds like Confucius and Sophocles remind us how important a desire to learn and grow can be in our lives.

Keep reading to learn more about how desire plays a part in keeping us motivated and happy.

However, as some of these desire quotes point out, there can be a downside to desire.

Don’t forget to also check out these passion quotes to find your place in life.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration.

Check out our entire collection of motivational quotes here. 

These desire quotes for her will have her falling head over heels

1. “Ask me to define my love for you and I’ll say it’s captured in every beautiful memory of our past, detailed out in vivid visions of our dreams and future plans, but most of all it’s right now, at the moment where everything I’ve ever wanted in my life is standing right in front of me.” — Leo Christopher

2. “The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said, have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.” — George Moore

3. “Oh no. Don’t smile. You’ll kill me. I stop breathing when you smile.” ― Tessa Dare

4. “I desire to be with you. I miss you. I feel lonely when I can’t see you. I am obsessed with you, fascinated by you, infatuated with you. I hunger for your taste, your smell, the feel of your soul touching mine.” ― Jack Llawayllynn, Indulgence

5. “See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand. That I might touch that cheek!” ― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

6. “Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.” ― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

7. “Desire is the kind of thing that eats you and leaves you starving.” ― Nayyirah Waheed

8. “You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees.” ― Grace Willows, To Kiss a King

9. “Desire. I desire you more than food and drink. My body, my senses, my mind, hunger for your taste.” ― Rumi, The Love Poems of Rumi

10. “I can never think of you as a friend. You can do without a friend.” ― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

You will also enjoy our article on Lucifer quotes.

I desire you quotes for him about relationships and love

11. “The best partnerships aren’t dependent on a mere common goal but on a shared path of equality, desire, and no small amount of passion.” ― Sarah MacLean

12. “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” ― Robert Frost

13. “The ego-mind both professes its desire for love and does everything possible to repel it, or if it gets here anyway, to sabotage it. That is why dealing with issues like control, anger, and neediness is the most important work in preparing ourselves for love.” ― Marianne Williamson

14. “The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.” ― Madame de Stael

15. “When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.” ― Dalai Lama

16. “In every living thing there is the desire for love.” ― D. H. Lawrence

17. “Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?” ― Walt Whitman

18. “Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die of it.” ― Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

19. “Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.” ― Roland Barthes

20. “Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.” ― Patti Smith

If you enjoy this article, check out our collection of temptation quotes to help you navigate your desires.

Desire quotes for when success is what you want

21. “The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” ― Confucius

22. “The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.” ― Robert Kiyosaki

23. “Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” ― Mario Andretti

24. “What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle and giving 110 percent all the time.” ― Don Zimmer

25. “I’ve always believed that success for anyone is all about drive, dedication, and desire, but for me, it’s also been about confidence and faith.” ― Stephen Curry

26. “The starting point of all achievement is desire.” ― Napoleon Hill

27. “There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” ― George Bernard Shaw

28. “I motivate myself by the desire to win more trophies.” ― Robert Lewandowski

29. “If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.” ― Lou Holtz

30. “The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.” ― Brian Tracy

31. “What does it take to be a champion? Desire, dedication, determination, concentration and the will to win.” ― Patty Berg

32. “Success – keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.” ― Walter Scott

You might also like these lustful quotes about the sinful emotion we love.

Desire quotes about chasing your dreams, imagination, and knowledge

33. “A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” ― Ayn Rand

34. “I think anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will and desire to do it and put the time in.” ― Roger Clemens

35. “Dreams can become a reality when we possess a vision that is characterized by the willingness to work hard, a desire for excellence, and a belief in our right and our responsibility to be equal members of society.” ― Janet Jackson

36. “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” ― E. B. White

37. “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” ― George Bernard Shaw

38. “Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon… must inevitably come to pass!” ― Paul J. Meyer

39. “Always desire to learn something useful.” ― Sophocles

40. “We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing.” ― Maria Mitchell

41. “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” ― Plato

42. “Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.” ― Will Durant

43. “A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.” ― Horace Mann

Inspirational desire quotes for when life is difficult

44. “Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

45. “Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” ― Confucius

46. “Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing – where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger; which he knows he was meant and made to do.” ― Phillips Brooks

47. “Not everything happens as we want or desire. It doesn’t matter. I’m a fighter, and I’m ready to fight every time.” ― Valentina Shevchenko

48. “Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.” ― Lois McMaster Bujold

49. “I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.” ― Victoria Woodhull

50. “Desire creates the power.” ― Raymond Holliwell

More thought-provoking desire quotes

51. “To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” ― Federico García Lorca

52. “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ― Epicurus

53. “Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.” ― Dan Brown

54. “Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

55. “Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.” ― William Blake

56. “Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody—really want him—it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause a lacerating injury.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert

57. “I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.” ― Virginia Woolf

58. “I got my heart’s desire, and there my troubles began.” ― Lev Grossman

59. “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” ― Noel Langley

60. “You need to know it’s your actions that will make you a good person, not desire.” ― Matthew Quick

What did you learn from these desire quotes about intimacy and passion?

Sure, there can be some downsides to desire, but the truth is it is just a feeling like any other human feeling.

It is our brain’s way of telling us that something is missing and keeps us exploring life.

However, because it is a feeling that we act on, it can influence our behavior in ways that negatively affect our decision-making skills.

There is a debate about which desire is the “strongest,” with some people claiming it is our desire for sex, love, and even immortality.

Napoleon Hill says that “Sex desire is the most powerful of human desires.

When driven by this desire, men develop keenness of imagination, courage, willpower, persistence, and creative ability unknown to them at other times.

So strong and impelling is the desire for sexual contact that men freely run the risk of life and reputation to indulge it.”

It is hard to deny that the search for immortality, or at least prolonging life for as long as possible.

We spend all kinds of money and time to improve our health and look and feel younger.

To quote Tom Ellis from Netflix’s hit show Lucifer, “What is it you truly desire?”

Is it money, love, sex, success, immortality… or something else?

Let us know, using the comment section below.

And don’t forget to also share with us any other favorite desire quotes and sayings you may have.