Pleasure Quotes

“Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?What masque, what music? How shall we beguileThe lazy time if not with some delight?”

“evenThe bed of love, that in the imaginationHad seemed to be the giver of all peace,Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting,And as soon finished.”

“All the daily routine of life, our dressing and undressing, the coming and going from our work or carrying through of its various operations, is utterly without mental reference to pleasure and pain, except under rarely realized conditions.”

“And learn that the best thing isTo change my loves while dancingAnd pay but a kiss for a kiss.”

“The poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven't the time to cook it.”

“For pleasure has no relish unless we share it.”

“Am I alone in my egotism when I say that never does the pale light of dawn filter through the blinds of 52 Tavistock Square but I open my eyes and exclaim, "Good God! Here I am again!" not always with pleasure, often with pain; sometimes in a spasm.”

“I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful.”

“To stand in a great bookshop crammed with books so new that their pages almost stick together, and the gilt on their backs is still fresh, has an excitement no less delightful than the old excitement of the second-hand bookstall.”

“I do not agree that an age of pleasure is no compensation for a moment of pain.”

“On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar.”

“If there's anything you want to do and you can't figure out why you're not doing it, there's a simple answer: you link more pain to doing it than not doing it. Hey, if you don't have enough money, for example I know that's an issue for a lot of people. It was for a good deal of my life. If you don't have money there's only one reason: you link more pain to having more money than to not having it.”

“Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.”

“All change is nothing but a decision. All decisions are controlled by what we link to pain and pleasure.”

“People will do more to avoid pain than they will do to gain pleasure.”

“The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.”

“Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”

“Excitement is not enjoyment: in calmness lies true pleasure. The most precious wines are sipped, not bolted at a swallow.”

“My definition of success is to live your life in a way that causes you to feel a ton of pleasure and very little pain - and because of your lifestyle, have the people around you feel a lot more pleasure than they do pain.”

“Wat a vast fertility of pleasure books hold for me! I went in and found the table laden with books. I looked in and sniffed them all. I could not resist carrying this one off and broaching it. I think I could happily live here and read forever.”

“writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial.”

“I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.”

“Nothing could be slow enough, nothing lasts too long. No pleasure could equal, she thought, straightening the chairs, pushing in one book on the shelf, this having done with the triumphs of youth, lost herself in the process of living, to find it with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as the day sank. Many a time had she gone, at Barton when they were all talking, to look at the sky; seen it between peoples shoulders at dinner; seen it in London when she could not sleep. She walked to the window.”

“As nobody can possibly tell me whether one's writing is bad or good, the only certain value is one's own pleasure. I am sure of that.”

“A whole lifetime was too short to bring out, the full flavour; to extract every ounce of pleasure, every shade of meaning.”