Lust

“ Nay, I felt the 'clear keen joyance' of the lark that loves, but 'ne'er knew love's sad satiety.' Hitherto, the pleasure that women had given me had always jarred upon my nerves. It was, in fact, 'a thing wherein we feel there is a hidden want.' Lust was now the overflowing of the heart and of the mind—the pleasurable harmony of all the senses. ”

“ For call it Love as they will, it is naught but Lust, as low an instinct or habit as that of craving for strong liquor or any wherewithall to still the insatiate demands of uncontrolled appetite. Love hath naught to do with Lust,—for Love is a Principle, not a Passion. ”

“ That is what we all, even the grossest of us, in our heart of hearts are seeking. Lust seeks it; Love creates it; the miracle of Faith finds it—but nothing less, neither truth nor wisdom nor morality nor knowledge, neither progress nor reaction, can quench the thirst we feel. ”

“ I recognise with horror that infernal fascination which took from me the use of my reason, and which was not love even,—no, I yielded to the grossest, most degrading passion which can lower man to the level of a brute, to that passion which, to my shame and to yours, I desire to stigmatise aloud as lust, madame! ”

“ We so managed matters that we all came together or nearly so, and the women followed suit at the last final crisis, which was ushered in with wild cries of lust, and then a sudden overpowering silence fell on all as they lay panting in all the after-joys that follow the ecstatic discharge of life's essence. ”

“ If no type of chivalrous and purifying passion remained, there would be no one left to say that lust bore none of the marks of love, that lust was rapacious and love pitiful, that lust was blind and love vigilant, that lust sated itself and love was insatiable. ”

“ Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;
⁠Which the hot tyrant stains, and soon bereaves,
⁠As Caterpillers do the tender leaves.
Love comforteth like Sun-shine after rain:
But lusts effect is tempest after Sun.
Loves gentle spring doth always fresh remain:
Lusts Winter comes, ere Summer half be done.
⁠Love surfets not: lust like a glutton dies.
⁠Love is all truth: lust full of forged lies.
More I could tell, but more I dare not say;
The Text is old, the Orator too green;
Therefore in sadness now I will away,
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen ”

“ So eagerly they cling in Venus' bonds, Whilst melt away their members, overcome By violence of delight. But when at last Lust, gathered in the thews, hath spent itself, There come a brief pause in the raging heat— But then a madness just the same returns And that old fury visits them again, When once again they seek and crave to reach They know not what, all powerless to find The artifice to subjugate the bane. ”

“ Soon she was entirely naked; then their arms wreathed around each other's necks, they writhed with thrilling joy, rubbing their limbs together, murmuring with pleasure, cooing like two amorous doves, and sucking each other's tongues, rapturously intoxicated with the scent of each other's body.
And you can understand their passionate delight, for they were at the age when life is flush with lust, and the flesh melts away like wax. ”

“ Aye, reformed, when there is no longer sweetness in the indulgence of lust. Think of such loathsome bestiality, dragging its slimy body across the threshold of honor and nobility and asking a pure woman, with the love-light of heaven in her eyes, to pass her days with him; to accept him as her lord; to be satisfied with the burnt-out, shriveled forces of manhood left; to sacrifice her purity that he may be redeemed, and to respect in a husband what she would despise in the brute. ”

“ As you have devised new methods to satisfy male lust, grant the same privilege to women; let them have intercourse with one another like men, girding themselves with the infamous instruments of lust, an unholy imitation of a fruitless union; in a word, let our wanton Tribads reign unchecked, and let our women’s chambers be disgraced by hermaphrodites. Far better that a woman, in the madness of her lust, should usurp the nature of a man, than that man’s noble nature should be so degraded as to play the woman!”
IV. ”

“ Worse than fiend's fury, since the soul sees Heaven
Among eternal torments unforgiven.
Temptation neighbored, like a bloody rust
On a bright blade, leaves ugly stains; and lust
Is love's undoing when love's limbs are cast
Naked before desire. ”

“ Without stopping to inquire into the origin of lust, I may say that it originates in man’s ignorance, necessarily. If you recollect the figure in the parable of the Garden of Eden, you remember that the sin committed by Eve was eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is where we all eat. But I do not propose to dwell upon the nature and origin of this lust in man, but merely to speak of it as being that which characterizes him in his lowest sphere of being. ”

“ Suppose the smiling face of Love should turn out to be nothing but a mask hiding the gross and brutal leer of Lust, what then? She saw that other man's dreadful face, painted in hot and living colours upon the darkness. ”

“ Not that I underestimate the strength of the thing. Who knows so well as I that love is the most powerful force in the world? Mind you, Doug, I make a sharp distinction between love and lust. Lust can be controlled by any one. ”

“ This sphere of lust, I say, then, does not arise from the body, nor from the influence of the body on the soul. It arises from our neglect of our spiritual needs. This lust, this desire proclaims a divine life within, which demands activity corresponding to our real natures; and we can never get peace and happiness until those real demands of our natures are supplied. I appeal to all pleasure-seekers whether this is not true. You have heard it argued whether there be more pleasure in anticipation than in participation. The world’s pleasures are always in the future, never in the present. ”

“ The lust of the satyr, the affectionate glow of the domestic habitué, the rare exalted passion of the lover, the cold, clear attraction of the intellectual platonist, the will to possession of the sex-maniac, the will to voluptuous cruelty of the sex-pervert, the maternal instinct, the race-instinct, the instinct towards fetish-worship, the instinct towards art, towards nature, towards the ultimate mystery—all these things have been called "love" that we should follow them and pursue them ”

“ How does it concern us whose conversation is in heaven? who, as well as Pythagoras and Empedocles and all lovers of wisdom, are not bound to the circumstances of our birth, but of our new birth: who by abstinence subjugate our refractory flesh, eager to follow the allurements of lust? The eating of flesh, and drinking of wine, and fulness of stomach, is the seed-plot of lust. ”

“ Of the evil of lust,—a word which, though applicable to many vices, is specially appropriated to sexual uncleanness.
Although, therefore, lust may have many objects, yet when no object is specified, the word lust usually suggests to the mind the lustful excitement of the organs of generation. And this lust not only takes possession of the whole body and outward members, but also makes itself felt within, and moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. ”

“ And their manifestation will be according to the plane of the lust and the means adopted for its gratification. But while lusts differ thus in their modes of expression, as well as in their primary and secondary effects upon the individual, they are all alike in their inception, and in the end sought to be attained. They all have their beginning in the neglect of some need, which creates a sense of lack, and they all seek self-gratification irrespective of such need; so that all lust, in whatever plane found, is alike in its origin and end. All are fatal to true happiness. ”

“ No sentiment of sublimity raised him above the grosser atmosphere in which love is tainted with lust, luxurious images are sought for their own sake,-8- and passion dwindles in the languor of voluptuousness. ”

“ Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love’s the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead. ”

“ Passions break out, pleasures overflow; beauty fades, and [274] falls quicker than the leaf on the ground, when the amorous storms of lust blow on it before the coming of autumn, and is withered by destruction. ”

“ Lust may be defined to be the desire for self-gratification. The forbidden fruit is that which seems to be desired to make one happy, and is sought after, not for the purpose of supplying a need, but to gratify a desire. ”

“ If I hear a Person very positive that Love and Lust are the same Thing, I take it for granted, that his Nerves are so coarse and callous, that nothing less than the Stroke of a Blacksmith's Hammer can possibly have any Effect upon him. ”

“ The Passion is strong, but then it is general; it is Lust, not Love: And therefore the natural Impatience of Lust will prompt them to take the speediest way for present Gratification, and make them prefer the ready and willing Embraces of a Courtezan, before the doubtful and distant Prospect of enjoying a modest Damsel, whose Coyness will cost so much Pains, as well as Time, to overcome; and, when overcome, may probably occasion a future Uneasiness, and give them more Trouble after Enjoyment than they had before. ”

“ Sexual activity, we see, is not merely a bald propagative act, nor, when propagation is put aside, is it merely the relief of distended vessels. It is something more even than the foundation of great social institutions. It is the function by which all the finer activities of the organism, physical and psychic, may be developed and satisfied. Nothing, it has been said, is so serious as lust—to use the beautiful term which has been degraded into the expression of the lowest forms of sensual pleasure—and we have now to add that nothing is so full of play as love. ”

“ And in the second place, you have spoken too exclusively of Lust, as if it were the normal condition of sexual feeling, and the only one properly to be called sexual. But the great relation of the sexes is Love, not Lust ”

“ Remembering our definition of lust to be a desire for self-gratification, we shall find that this change and variety in food and drink looks more to the gratification of desires than to the fulfilling of needs, and therefore belongs to the class of lusts.
True love never changes. From its nature it can not. It being that impulse which indicates an affectional need, it must be as unchanging as the soul and God. Take that known as maternal love, and who that has known a mother’s love will say that it demands for its life and continuance variety and change? ”

“ In like manner we say, with regard to the irrational creatures, that lust is a certain uncircumspect and earthly passionate attachment, arising incontinently from an innate movement, or intimacy in things subject to change, and the irrational supremacy of the bodily desire, which drives the whole organism towards the object of sensual inclination. ”

“ Men and women, old and young, without exception, are seen entangled in the coils of sensuality. Blinded by lust, they lose all sense of right and wrong. I have myself seen even boys and girls behaving like mad men under its fatal influence. I too have behaved likewise under similar influences, and it could not well be otherwise. For the sake of a momentary pleasure, we sacrifice in an instant all the stock of vitality that we have accumulated. ”

“ The Ninth and Tenth Commandments
The ninth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house," is now to be treated of. There are two loves from which all lusts spring and flow forth perpetually like streams from their fountains. These loves are called love of the world and love of self. Lust is a love continually desiring, for what a man loves, that he continually longs for. ”

“ The appetite which men call lust, and the fruition that appertaineth thereunto, is a sensual pleasure, but not only that; there is in it also a delight of the mind: for it consisteth of two appetites together, to please, and to be pleased; and the delight men take in delighting, is not sensual, 48but a pleasure or joy of the mind consisting in the imagination of the power they have so much to please. But the name lust is used where it is condemned; otherwise it is called by the general word love: for the passion is one and the same indefinite desire of different sex, as natural as hunger. ”

“ Arrows of Cupid work divers effects. Some do but scratch us: Slow and insidious these poison our hearts over years. Yet with a head freshly honed and cunningly fledged, certain others Pierce to the marrow, inflame rapidly there our blood. When gods and goddesses in days of heroes made love, then Lust followed look and desire, with no delay, was indulged. Surely you don't think the goddess of love lost a moment reflecting When, in Idean grove, Anchises caught her eye. ”

“ There is, indeed, a passion which is the love of the body. We call it by its proper name of lust. There is another emotion, for which the rich tongue of the ancient Greeks had a word, to which we have nothing to correspond. ”

“ For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity. ”

“ Inside this exterior, over which the eye might have roved as over a thing scarcely percipient, almost inorganic, there was the record of a pulsing life which had learnt too well, for its years, of the dust and ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust and the fragility of love. ”