Wantonness

“ that, while wantonness, vanity, avarice, and ambition are every day rioting and triumphing in the follies and weakness, the ruin and desolation of mankind, scarce one man in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others. ”

“ And yet such is the sad condition of nay soul by nature, not only a servant but a slave unto sin. Pride calls me to the window, gluttony to the table, wantonness to the bed, laziness to the chimney, ambition commands me to go upstairs, and covetousness to come down. ”

“ You are mental wantons, who sin with the eyes.
You lure love to wake, yet bid it keep under,
You tempt us to fall, but bid reason control;
And then you are full of an outraged wonder
When we get to wanting you, body and soul. ”

“ If, in all those attentions and eagernesses with which we see you occupied, to manage either the interests of your worldly affairs, or the preservation of a vain beauty, there is not either as much forwardness as may amount to the crime of illegal ambition, or complaisance for yourself, and desire of pleasing, as may sully your heart with the guilt of sensuality? ”

“ No, my temperament does not allow me to look wanton, casting my eyes in all directions in order that in your sight I may appear beautiful, not indeed in soul but in face. For, in your judgment, true beauty of soul consists in a wanton life. ”

“ Ninthly, A state of desire ought to be pleasant at first, from the near relation of desire to love, and of love to pleasure and happiness. But in the course of a long pursuit, so many fears and disappointments, apparent or real, in respect of the subordinate means, and so many strong agitations of mind passing the limits of pleasure, intervene, as greatly to chequer a state of desire with misery. For the same reasons states of aversion are chequered with hope and comfort. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ambition, avarice, ten thousand mean, ignoble passions, had extinguished within him that soft, but indefinable sensorium of unallayed delight, with which his sold, whose susceptibility is not destroyed by the demands of selfish appetite, thrills exultingly, and wants but the union of another, of whom the feelings are in unison with his own, to constitute almost insupportable delight. ”

“ They confuse that rude instinct which is jealousy, physical and base, with the higher and more ardent love—the virile affirmation of possession with the fresher, more vigorous desire of love’s happiness—but this does not make their passions more trivial nor less consuming. ”

“ But how far will the ardency of desire prompt us on? For notwithstanding the many disputes and perplexities I had with myself, I at length resolved, right or wrong, to get one of these savages into my hands, cost what it would, or even though I should lose my life in the attempt. ”

“ And the experimenter may be assured that if we can by any means will or exorcise all envy, vanity, folly, irritability, vindictiveness—in short all evil—out of ourselves, and supply their place with Love, we shall take the most effective means to secure our own happiness, as well as that of others. ”

“ Appetite, Desire, Anger, Lust, Greediness, Envy, Malice, impel him to courses which are vicious. But these impulses he is capable of resisting and controlling;—of avoiding the vices and practising the opposite virtues;—and of rising from one stage of Virtue to another, by a gradual and successive purification and elevation of the desires, affections and habits, in a degree, so far as we know, without limit. ”

“ The absolute sincerity, the painful love of truth, the avoidance of everything sexual, the careful judgment, and the strength of will—all these form part of that spurious personality which woman in her passivity has taken upon herself to exhibit to herself and to the world at large. ”

“ There,” he burst out, vehemently, “there are To Will and To have your Will, both together,” he pointed to the bit of shagreen; “there are your social ideas, your immoderate desires, your excesses, your pleasures that end in death, your sorrows that quicken the pace of life, for pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure. ”

“ Or why, O custom! didst thou oblige them to modesty, such cold temperance, that they must be wooed by men—courted by men? Why, all know they are more full of strong desires—those desires most impatient of delay or hindrance, they have more unruly passions than men, and weaker reason to temper those passions than men. ”

“ Your wish is a foolish one, and I warn you that if you gain it you will be sorry. Why will you not be content as you are?"
"Your majesty," replied the obstinate youth. "I cannot be content as I am."
"Well, since you insist on having your own way, we'll make our bargain. ”

“ It should kill these lusts to think of their disappointment: " You lust, and have not; you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain, v. 2. You covet great things for yourselves, and you think to obtain them by your victories over the Romans or by suppressing this and the other party among yourselves. You think you shall secure great pleasures and happiness to yourselves, by overthrowing every thing which thwarts your eager wishes ”

“ And if, through your disillusion and disgust, and the pain of broken idols, you permit yourself to act foolishly and with want of dignity at a period when love seems of supreme importance, you will be laying up limitations for yourself. ”

“ If the emotions which we choose are not those that the whole of us—or at least the conscious—would desire, it is because we are choosing in response to hidden desires, and giving satisfaction to cravings which we have not recognized. Repeated indulgence of such desires is responsible for the emotional habits which we are too likely to consider an inevitable part of our personality, inherited from ancestors who are not on hand to defend themselves. ”

“ Whatever sinister passions were heaving under its splendid and complex surface, I was too agitated by a simple and innocent desire of my own, to notice the signs or interpret them correctly. The most innocent of passions will take the edge off one's judgment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Think not, because I have gone through life a lone, uncared-for thing, that I undervalue the strength and power of deep affection, or that I could counsel you to make it subservient to views of worldliness and advantage. ”

“ At present, as their chief desire appears to be only the gratification of sensual appetites, they are at all times found to be more attentive to points which have a direct reference to the indulgence of their favourite passions, than to those minor injunctions which require of them secrecy and solitude. ”

“ We can’t command our love, but we can our actions. ”

“ These indications were those of violent passions without tenderness, sudden devotions, irreconcilable dislikes, a mind without intelligence, and the desire to rule natural to persons who feel themselves inferior to their pretensions. ”

“ The complications have multiplied enormously. More especially that little trouble of preferences. These emotions we may educate indeed, but not altogether. Neither pride nor preference nor jealousy are to be tampered with lightly. ”

“ While any degree of resentment, or unpleasing affection, is left, it may be shewn, that the same associations which keep it up, will turn it upon the creatures, and particularly upon ourselves. And, on the other hand, when the consideration of the Ultimate Cause seems ready to turn it from ourselves, it will also shew that it ought to be annihilated. ”

“ Only their evident exhibition is suppressed. Strain of attention to what is hostile to desire is irksome; in spite of one's conscious wish, the underlying desires determine the main course of thought, the deeper emotional responses. ”

“ It is naturally intertwined—and to a much greater degree than the corresponding desire in men—with her deepest personal, family, and social instincts, so that if these are desecrated and lost its charm soon fades. ”

“ And the weak soul, within itself unbless’d,
Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast. ”

“ Thus the hearts particularly sensitive to this kind of pleasure, and most greedy of them, will be more easily led to share these disagreeable affections, which are the condition of the former; and even in the most violent storms of passion they will always preserve some remains of their freedom. ”

“ That’s what you men are always doing; it’s so barbarously naive. You feel one of your loose desires for some woman, and because you desire her strongly you immediately accuse her of luring you on, of deliberately provoking and inviting the desire. ”

“ What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. ”

“ His repeated promises confirm her hopes: embraces and endearments, which increase the ardour of her desires, overmaster her soul. She floats in a dim, delusive anticipation of her happiness; and her feelings become excited to their utmost tension. She stretches out her arms finally to embrace the object of all her wishes and her lover forsakes her. Stunned and bewildered, she stands upon a precipice. All is darkness around her. No prospect, no hope, no consolation—forsaken by him in whom her existence was centred! ”

“ "Not a bit of will—I'm a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires—"
"You are not!" ”

“ Our desires, once realized, haunt us again less readily. ”

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

“ 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. ”

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

“ But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose. ”

“ One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. ”

“ “I must ask what it is you want of me?”
“What can I want? All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing,” she said, understanding all he had not uttered. “But that I don’t want; that’s secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over.” ”

“ But the natural desires and affections spontaneously carry and deposit their interests in consciousness, where also immoral aims make themselves naturally at home: the good or bad character would thus express the definite being of the will, which would be known, and that most immediately, in the interests and aims. ”

“ What did you have in you?—some childish notions, a few half-baked sentiments, a lot of undigested beauty, a great black mass of ignorance, a heart filled to bursting with love, and an ambition as big as your love and as futile as your ignorance. ”