The Vanity of Human Wishes

“ A thousand good wishes, which may all be summed up in one,—health for you and yours, and all those you love; in this wish lies the continuance of your happiness, in this lies your enjoyment of it, in this lies all that is good, all that I can possibly desire for you, and no human being could possibly wish or desire anything better for any man? ”

“ How can our wishes, often so foolish, and our will, often so selfish, overrule or change that perfect will? Were it not better to leave all to His disposal, who knows what is best, and loves to give us the very best? ”

“ Probably everything is a mere question of wishing,—providing that we wish, not to have, but to be. Most of the sorrow of life certainly exists because of the wrong kind of wishing and because of the contemptible pettiness of the wishes. ”

“ The exaltation of desire, of hope, of self-sacrifice by which love manifests itself and in which it principally consists, could not have any moral merit nor could it become a real incentive to noble actions except on certain conditions. ”

“ The sensuous desire is violent but limited; the moral desire is infinite: the craving which soul feels for perfect communion with soul, and the infinite variety with which that desire is maintained, give to love its lustre and its immortality. ”

“ How often does it happen, in various instances, that in the blindness of human wishes, we hurry to the goal of our desires—even those which we deem innocent and praiseworthy; but which, when suffered to lead us on, without a reference to a higher power, never fail to mislead, and prove fallacious when obtained. ”

“ Such are the desires of possessing wealth, of enjoying the conveniences of life, of being honored and esteemed by men, of being preferred before others; again, the desire of vain and unprofitable knowledge, and the love of vanity and pleasures. ”

“ But had these wishes sprung out of a pure heart, and in conformity with the necessities of the times, one might composedly let them lie and fall right and left, and be assured that these must not only be found out and picked up again, but that also many kindred things, which one has never touched and never even thought of, will come to light. ”

“ Be not surprised and alarmed that now has appeared of a sudden, What thou hast wished for so long. It is true that the present appearance Bears not the form of the wish, exactly as thou hadst conceived it: For our wishes oft hide from ourselves the object we wish for; Gifts come down from above in the shapes appointed by Heaven. Therefore misjudge not the maiden who now of thy dearly beloved, Good and intelligent son has been first to touch the affections: Happy to whom at once his first love's hand shall be given, And in whose heart no tenderest wish must secretly languish. ”

“ And, then, as the man develops his nobler nature, there arises the desire higher yet—the passion of passions, the hope of hopes—the desire that he, even he, may somehow aid in making life better and brighter, in destroying want and sin, sorrow and shame. ”

“ How is it possible to reconcile this ideal of life, still more the hope of everlasting life, with the acknowledged vanity of desire? It is accomplished through the medium of an emotion which more than any I have touched upon reveals the character of the religious sentiment—Love. ”

“ I understand now that my sole ambition is to bring life within their reach. What matter what their thoughts, their loves, their wishes, if at least they have acquired the taste and the means of thinking, loving and wishing? ”

“ Not a wish remains for me.
Not a wish! beat not my heart,
Thou hast bade thy dreams depart;
They have past, but left behind
Weary spirit, wasted mind.
Ah! if this old charm were sooth,
One wish yet might tax its truth ”

“ And the true cause of his trouble is that he has based his hope on what he has seen in a dream, or his own fancy has put together; without previous thought whether what he desires is in itself attainable and within the compass of human nature. ”

“ If I could have what I wish, I’d choose to love, to be loved, like the great masters in the art, the lovers par excellence of the ages. I’d be willing, if needs be, to sacrifice everything else, and count the world well lost. ”

“ Wishes—just the poor, commonplace little wishes of household life—what could poor, commonplace little Unity, with her limited soul-horizon, do more for him? wishes vaguely formulated in his mind he found quickly and effectively realized, and worried, hard-working, honest man that he was, he took the practical comforts sometimes as a matter of course, now and then with a careless word of thanks, and never dreamed—how could he?—of the passionate endeavour whereby these poor, commonplace little things came to pass. ”

“ But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes. ”

“ We cannot desire too much, and when we desire with all the life and power that is within us, our desires shall positively be fulfilled. The wish must be whole-hearted, not half-hearted; it must contain all the power we have, not simply the limited actions of shallow thinking; and it must contain soul, not simply emotion, but that deep, spiritual feeling that touches the very spirit of limitless life and power. ”

“ He has seen their possessions, humble in their eyes, wonderful in his, and in his heart a desire is implanted—a desire for something a little better than has satisfied his fathers. And slowly this little leaven of discontent, heavenly discontent and dissatisfaction with things as they are, will permeate the whole lump. ”

“ To feel impartially a multitude of strong, fresh wants—the imperative need to live life in all its fulness, this of itself makes the heart to sing. And, above the full complement of wants, to have been dowered by Heaven with a stanch disbelief in the unattainable,—this is a fortune rather to be chosen than a good name or great riches ”

“ Does life give us all we wish, however passionately we wish it, and is Death any more likely to listen to the cry of our desires? Of course we wish it, wish it with a pathetic urgency which is too poignant to bear, and which the wise man bravely stifles. ”

“ You, for example, might wish to be something that would hardly tend to your happiness,—and your wish being obtained you might become what (if you had only realised it) you would give worlds not to be! ”

“ That this desire should unconsciously gain ground in a virtuous and ardent mind, is not wonderful, when one considers how the best propensities of the human heart are flattered, by supposing that we only sway the minds of others, to incline them to the paths of peace and happiness, and derive no other advantage from this tacit sovereignty, but that of seeing those objects of affectionate solicitude grow wiser and better. ”

“ Now you see, I am sure, how important wishes are for evil; but they are equally strong for good. For, if you wish well to any one, you have opened the first door to doing him a kindness. And if you heartily wish to be good, you have opened the first gate on the road of becoming so. Of course, wishes will not do every thing; but they do a great deal.
And there is another thing. They never fall to the ground unnoticed. Though you and I cannot look into each other's hearts, or hear the wishes breathed there, there is One who hears them all. ”

“ Our own will is blind in desires, puffed up in honours, full of anguish in cares, and restless in suspicions; more careful of glory than of virtue, a greater lover of fame than of a good conscience, and much more miserable enjoying the things that it loves than when it wants them, for experience augments her misery. ”

“ No; it envenoms it, converts natural desire into a morbid obsession and makes it the dominant passion. Let your needs rule you, pamper them—you will see them multiply like insects in the sun. The more you give them, the more they demand. He is senseless who seeks for happiness in material prosperity alone. ”

“ I’m quite as good as he is, and bigger and stronger. Who is he to ride while I have to walk in the dust and heat? Ah, I wish—but what’s the use of wishing, I should like to know? I’m always wishing for something or other, and I never get what I wish for. ”

“ Now you desire nothing else; every other desire is driven out; see that none enter again. 'Keep thyself pure;' let your 'eye' remain 'single, and your whole body shall be full of light.' Admit no desire of pleasing food, or any other pleasure of sense; no desire of pleasing the eye or the imagination, by anything grand, or new, or beautiful; no desire of money, of praise, or esteem; of happiness in any creature. ”

“ That desire, if specific and urgent, we call a wish.
All these varieties of desire include the same two factors: on the one hand a recognition of present defect in ourselves, on the other imagination of possible bettered conditions. Diminish either, and personal power is narrowed. The richer a man's imagination, and the more abundant his pictures of possible futures, the more resourceful he becomes. Pondering on desire as rooted in the sense of defect, we may feel less regret that our age is one not easily satisfied. ”

“ It is not the less true that will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire; including in that term the repelling influence of pain as well as the attractive one of pleasure. Let us take into consideration, no longer the person who has a confirmed will to do right, but him in whom that virtuous will is still feeble, conquerable by temptation, and not to be fully relied on; by what means can it be strengthened? How can the will to be virtuous, where it does not exist in sufficient force, be implanted or awakened? ”

“ Desire is implanted within us, as the very principle of existence; the physical desire fills the world, and the moral desire improves it. Where there is desire, there must be discontent: if we are satisfied with all things, desire is extinct. But a certain degree of discontent is not incompatible with happiness, nay, it has happiness of its own; what happiness like hope,—what is hope but desire? The European serf, whose seigneur could command his life, or insist as a right on the chastity of his daughter, desires to better his condition. ”

“ The difference between willing and merely wishing, between having ideals that are creative and ideals that are but pinings and regrets, thus depends solely either on the amount of steam-pressure chronically driving the character in the ideal direction, or on the amount of ideal excitement transiently acquired. Given a certain amount of love, indignation, generosity, magnanimity, admiration, loyalty, or enthusiasm of self-surrender, the result is always the same. ”

“ Life and hope for the world are to be found only in the deeds of love. ”

“ How strange is the power of an idea, of a desire! To these two nothing seemed impossible. In such magic moments, when enjoyment sheds its reflections on the future, the soul foresees nothing but happiness. ”

“ When the will is bowed, a man is far on his road to perfection; and the meaning of all that God does with us—joys and sorrows, light and darkness, when His hand gives, and when His hand withdraws, as when His authoritative voice commands, and the sweet impulses of His love graciously constrain—is that our wills may be made plastic and flexible, like a piece of wrought leather, to every touch of His hand. ”

“ This desire, so kindly expressed, immediately awakened within me an inclination to comply with it: for if, in the early years of life, our passions lead us to follow our own course, and, in order not to swerve from it, we impatiently repel the demands of others; so, in our later days, it becomes highly advantageous to us, should any sympathy excite and determine us, cordially, to new activity. ”

“ In loving you I am but doing homage to virtue and wisdom and piety—in bowing down before your image I am but worshipping the noblest attributes of human nature enshrined within your heart. I dared not pour out the fullness of my joy until I had told you my sad tale, but now that you know all—now that no shadow of distrust can fall upon the sunshine of the future, come to me, and assure me with your own dear voice that my troubled dream is now forever past, and that the dawn of happiness is breaking upon my weary heart! ”

“ What next I bring shall please thee, be assured, Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self, Thy wish exactly to thy heart's desire. ”

“ At any rate, we went to the wishing well, and the boon we sought we can now call our own. The question remains, are all desires granted, either through visits to wishing-wells or in any other way? The experiences of life give a definite answer in the negative. How then are believers in the power of wishing-wells to account for such failures? The rites were duly attended to, yet there was no result. Why was the charm not effectual? Any sincere answer to the question ought to be an acknowledgment of ignorance. ”

“ “Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing—desire. ”

“ However, some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he, whose real wants are supplied, must admit those of fancy." ”

“ In your period of passion you must subordinate instinctive desire to your reason, your conscience, your heart and soul; the lust of the body to the spirit's love. In the period of ambition you must coordinate all that is personal or selfish with what is absolutely true, just, holy, and good. Surely this will demand self-denial, now of instinctive desire, now of selfish ambition. Much you must sacrifice. But you will gain the possession, the use, the development, and the joy of your own mind and conscience, heart and soul. You will never sacrifice truth, justice, holiness, or love. ”