No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get.
 G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World (1910). copy citation

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Author G. K. Chesterton
Source What's Wrong with the World
Topic desire
Date 1910
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1717/1717-h/1717-h.htm

Context

“This definite ideal is a far more urgent and practical matter in our existing English trouble than any immediate plans or proposals. For the present chaos is due to a sort of general oblivion of all that men were originally aiming at. No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what the man really wanted first; and after a successful and vigorous political life, he forgets it himself. The whole is an extravagant riot of second bests, a pandemonium of pis-aller.” source