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Pleasure quotes

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“when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.” Jane Austen, Persuasion

“You can't have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“any pleasure that does no harm to other people is to be valued.” Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.” Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

“This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.” Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.” William Shakespeare, Othello

“They suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it?” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Pride, therefore, is pleasure springing from a man thinking too highly of himself.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.” Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

“Men seek but one thing in life—their pleasure.” W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

“I pleasure those whom I would liefest please.” Sophocles, Antigone

“Come! your presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure.” Voltaire, Candide

“Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“to care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure” F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

“Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another. The opposite of boredom, in a word, is not pleasure, but excitement.” Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.” Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

“The third principle is the motive: for instance when a man is moved by one whom he loves, to do good to someone: for whatever we do or suffer for a friend is pleasant, because love is the principal cause of pleasure.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.” Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.” Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

“I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en; in brief, sir, study what you most affect.” William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

“the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.” Francis Bacon, The Essays of Francis Bacon

“Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.” William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“There be other simple ideas which convey themselves into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection, viz. PLEASURE or DELIGHT, and its opposite, PAIN, or UNEASINESS; POWER; EXISTENCE; UNITY mix with almost all our other Ideas.” John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. But, if you wish, let us stay here. Yes, let us stay here. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.” Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Your base level of pleasure is determined by how you view your whole life.” Oprah Winfrey, What I Know For Sure

“It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so.” Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

“You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“He who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking.” Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.” William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Later she remembered all the hours of the afternoon as happy—one of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure but turn out to have been the pleasure itself.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

“I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“For such Truth, as opposeth no man profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

“I have not the pleasure of understanding you” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures” Albert Camus, The Fall

“Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness.” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming...” Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

“It's never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late he's always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!” Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

“the pleasure isn’t in doing the thing; the pleasure is in planning it.” John Green, Paper Towns

“But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.” Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Old Age

“The performance of duty, and not an indulgence in vapid ease and vapid pleasure, is all that makes life worth while.” Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography

“There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak.” Woody Allen, Side Effects

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Related topics

love life pain happiness beauty self marriage memory reality stupidity boredom simplicity food remembrance profit God men unity excitement truth

Related authors

William Shakespeare (5)
Oscar Wilde (4)
John Green (4)
Jane Austen (4)
Bertrand Russell (2)
Thomas Hardy (2)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (2)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2)
William Makepeace Thackeray (1)
Baruch Spinoza (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
Aldous Huxley (1)
Voltaire (1)
Albert Camus (1)
Stephen King (1)
Blaise Pascal (1)
W. Somerset Maugham (1)
Virginia Woolf (1)
Michel de Montaigne (1)
Søren Kierkegaard (1)

Related sources

The Conquest of Happiness (2)
The Fault in Our Stars (3)
A Woman of No Importance (2)
Pride and Prejudice (2)
Tender Is the Night (2)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1)
Othello (1)
Of Human Bondage (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
Wuthering Heights (1)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (1)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1)
Pensées (1)
Brave New World (1)
Twelfth Night (1)
The Essays of Francis Bacon (1)
Fear and Trembling (1)