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PLEASURE quotes
Pleasure must first have the warrant that it is without sin; then the measure, that it is without excess.
Let us be sure that our delights exclude not the presence of God: we may please ourselves so long as we do not displease Him.
The man of pleasure little knows the perfect joy he loses for the disappointing gratifications which he pursues.
He that is violent in the pursuit of pleasure will not mind turning villain for the purchase.
Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.
It is sad to think how few our pleasures really are, and for which we risk eternal good.
In diving to the bottom of pleasures we bring up more gravel than pearls.
The purest pleasures lie within the circle of useful occupation.—Mere pleasure, sought outside of usefulness, is fraught with poison.
The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them, and they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.
The worst of enemies are flatterers, and the worst of flatterers are pleasures.
Pleasure and pain spring not so much from the nature of things, as from our manner of considering them.—Pleasure especially, is never an invariable effect of particular circumstances.—Largely that is pleasure which is thought to be so.
The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, consists in promoting the pleasure of others.
A life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind frivolous at last.
No state can be more destitute than that of a person, who, when the delights of sense forsake him, has no pleasures of the mind.
To make pleasures pleasant shorten them.
There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.
People should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by furnishing them the means of innocent ones. In every community there must be pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement; and if innocent are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal. Man was made to enjoy as well as labor, and the state of society should be adapted to this principle of human nature.
Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal: no one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.
Centers, or wooden frames are put under the arches of a bridge, to remain no longer than till the latter are consolidated, and then are thrown away or cast into the fire. Even so, sinful pleasures are the devil's scaffolding to build a habit upon; and once formed and fixed, the pleasures are sent for firewood, and hell begins in this life.
Pleasure is to woman what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, refreshes and improves; but if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.
The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by suffering.
The man of pleasure should more properly be termed the man of pain; like Diogenes, he purchases repentance at the highest price, and sells the richest reversion for the poorest reality.
Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.
Though a taste of pleasure may quicken the relish of life, an unrestrained indulgence leads to inevitable destruction.
Pleasure's couch is virtue's grave.
Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end.
A man that knows how to mix pleasures with business, is never entirely possessed by them; he either quits or resumes them at his will; and in the use he makes of them he rather finds a relaxation of mind than a dangerous charm that might corrupt him.
All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than expectation.
All pleasure must be bought at the price of pain.—The difference between false and true pleasure is this: for the true, the price is paid before you enjoy it; for the false, after you enjoy it.
He who spends all his life in sport is like one who wears nothing but fringes, and eats nothing but sauces.
Venture not to the utmost bounds of even lawful pleasures; the limits of good and evil join.
Choose such pleasures as recreate much and cost little.
No enjoyment is transitory; the impression which it leaves is lasting, and what is done with diligence and toil imparts to the spectator a secret force, of which one cannot say how far the effect may reach.
If the soul be happily disposed, everything becomes capable of affording entertainment, and distress will almost want a name.
None has more frequent conversations with disagreeable self than the man of pleasure; his enthusiasms are but few and transient; his appetites, like angry creditors, are continually making fruitless demands for what he is unable to pay; and the greater his former pleasures, the more strong his regret, the more impatient his expectations. A life of pleasure is, therefore, the most unpleasing life.
Pleasures, riches, honor, and joy are sure to have care, disgrace, adversity, and affliction in their train. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without sorrow. O the folly of expecting lasting felicity in a vale of tears, or a paradise in a ruined world!
Ply the pleasure that bites tomorrow.
The slave of pleasure soon sinks in a kind of voluptuous dotage; intoxicated with present delights, and careless of everything else, his days and nights glide away in luxury or vice, and he has no care, but to keep thought away: for thought is troublesome to him, who lives without his own approbation.
Pleasure is in general, dangerous and pernicious to virtue.—To be able, therefore, to furnish pleasure that is harmless and pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit. Very few carry their philosophy to places of diversion, or are very careful to analyze their enjoyments. The general condition of life is so full of misery, that we are glad to catch delight without inquiring whence it comes, or by what power it is bestowed.
The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and have it found out by accident.
The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.
He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity.
The sweetest pleasures are those which do not exhaust hope.
There is no greater fool than he who deliberately goes searching for pleasures. For every pleasure to which he habituates himself beyond those which God has put in the natural course of life, is a new fire kindled in his bones, which will burn his life-substance for fuel.
We have not an hour of life in which our pleasures relish not some pain, our sours, some sweetness.
I look upon it as an equal injustice to loath natural pleasures as to be too much in love with them.
Often and often to me, and instinctively, has an innocent pleasure felt like a foretaste of infinite delight, an ante-past of heaven. Nor can I believe otherwise than that pure happiness is of a purifying effect; like the manna from heaven, no doubt it is meant to invigorate as well as to gratify.
When pleasure rules the life, mind, sensibility, and health shrivel and waste, till at last, and not tardily, no joy in earth or heaven can move the worn-out heart to response.
He buys honey too dear who licks it from thorns.
All worldly pleasure is correspondent to a like measure of anxiety.
Let your pleasures be taken as Daniel took his prayer, with his windows open—pleasures which need not cause a single blush on an ingenuous cheek.
A life merely of pleasure, or chiefly of pleasure, is always a poor and worthless life, not worth the living; always unsatisfactory in its course, always miserable in its end.
What if a body might have all the pleasures in the world for asking? Who would so unman himself as, by accepting them, to desert his soul, and become a perpetual slave to his senses?
If I give way to pleasure, I must also yield to grief, to poverty, to labor, to ambition, to anger until I am torn to pieces by my misfortunes and my lust.
Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.
Pleasure and pain, beauty and deformity, good and ill, seemed to me everywhere interwoven; and one with another made a pretty mixture, agreeable enough in the main. 'Twas the same, I fancied, as in some of those rich stuffs where the flowers and ground were oddly put together, with such irregular work and contrary colors, as looked ill in the pattern, but natural and well in the piece.
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work: but when they seldom come, they wished for come, and nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
Violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die; like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness, and in the taste confounds the appetite.
Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision.
What leads to unhappiness, is making pleasure the chief aim.
Pleasure is one of those commodities which are sold at a thousand shops, and bought by a thousand customers, but of which nobody ever fairly finds possession. Either they know not well how to use, or the commodity will not keep, for no one has ever yet appeared to be satisfied with his bargain. It is too subtle for transition, though sufficiently solid for sale.
Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.
Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it, and leaves the sense of our inability for that we wish, with a disrelish of everything else. Thus the intermediate seasons of the man of pleasure are more heavy than one would impose upon the vilest criminal.
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; 'tis like spending this year, part of the next year's revenue.
Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet and tranquillity of thy life.
Look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously, that is, as they come toward you to be enjoyed, for then they paint and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel, and glass gems, and counterfeit imagery.
There is little pleasure in the world that is true and sincere beside the pleasure of doing our duty and doing good. I am sure no other is comparable to this.
Most pleasures, like flowers, when gathered, die.
Pleasure, like quicksilver, is bright and coy; we strive to grasp it with our utmost skill, still it eludes us, and it glitters still: if seized at last, compute your mighty gains; what is it, but rank poison in your veins?
Put this restriction on your pleasures; be cautious that they injure no being that lives.
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