There is no disease so destructive as lust.
All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life; _libido sentiendi, libido sciendi, libido dominandi_. Woe to the accursed land which these three rivers of flame enkindle rather than moisten. Happy they who are on these rivers, not overwhelmed nor carried away, but immovably fixed upon the floods, not standing, but seated, and on a firm and sure base, whence they rise not before the dawn; but where, having rested in peace, they stretch forth their hands to him who will lift them up, and cause them to stand firm and upright in the porches of the heavenly Jerusalem, where pride may no more assail nor cast them down; and who yet weep, not to see all those perishable things crumble which the torrents sweep away, but at the remembrance of their dear country, that heavenly Jerusalem, which they remember without ceasing while the days of their exile are prolonged.
Ad omnem libidinem projectus homo=--A man addicted to every lust.
God give us men. The time demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And dam his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking.
Jeder Tag hat seine Plage / Und die Nacht hat ihre Lust=--Every day has its torment, and the night has its pleasure.
The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off.
Ha! welche Lust, Soldat zu sein=--Ah! what a pleasure it is to be a soldier.
Die Lust ist machtiger als alle Furcht der Strafe=--Pleasure is more powerful than all fear of the penalty.
Therefore all that leads us to attach ourselves to the creature is evil, because it hinders us from serving God if we know him, and from seeking him if we know him not. Now we are full of lust. Therefore we are full of evil, therefore we should hate ourselves and all which urges us to attach ourselves to aught but God only.
The note of true religion must be that it obliges man to love his God. This is very right, and yet no other religion than ours has thus commanded; ours has done so. It must also be cognizant of man's lust and weakness, ours is so. It must have applied remedies for these defects; one is prayer. No other religion has asked of God the power to love and obey him.
As Jesus Christ remained unknown among men, so his truth remains among ordinary opinions without external difference. Thus the Eucharist among ordinary bread. All faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morals in lust and in grace.
Die Kraft ist schwach, allein die Lust ist gross=--The strength is weak, but the desire is great.
"How could they then apply remedies to your diseases, since they did not even know them? Your chief maladies are pride, which alienates you from God, and lust, which binds you down to earth; and they do nought else but nourish one or the other of these disorders. If they presented God as your end it was only done to gratify your pride; by making you think that you are by nature like him and conformed to him. Those who saw the extravagance of such an assertion did but set you on an opposite precipice, by tempting you to believe that your nature was of a piece with that of the beasts, and by inclining you to seek your good in the lusts which are shared by brutes. This is not the way to cure you of your unrighteousness, which these sages never knew. I alone can teach you who you are....
I’d had all kinds of sex. Quick sex, painful sex, humiliating sex, but this was the least sex-like sex I’d ever had. It wasn’t about lust, it was about power. Not even ownership, which implies a certain regard for the object, even pride.
Did we not know ourselves full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery and injustice, we were indeed blind. And if knowing this we did not desire deliverance, what could be said of a man.... What then can we feel but esteem for that Religion which is so well acquainted with the defects of man, and desire for the truth of a religion which promises remedies so precious.
Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place to find Him. Have you lost Christ in the closet by restraining prayer? Then it is there you must seek and find Him. Did you lose Christ by sin? You will find Him in no other way than by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the Scriptures? You must find Him in the Scriptures. It is a true proverb, "Look for a thing where you dropped it; it is there." So look for Christ where you lost Him, for He has not gone away.--_Spurgeon._
So in the passions, there is pleasure in seeing the shock of two contraries, but as soon as one gains the mastery it becomes mere brutality. We never seek things in themselves, but only the search for things. So on the stage, quiet scenes which raise no emotion are worthless, so is extreme and hopeless misery, so are brutal lust and excessive cruelty.
In every age its [liberty’s] progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and the poor man’s craving for food. [ The History of Freedom in Antiquity. ]
Harden their heart. How? By flattering their lust, and making them hope to accomplish it.
Nicht draussen im Strudel verrauschender Lust / Erwarte, das Gluck dir zu finden: / Die Seligkeit wohnt in der eigenen Brust, / Hier musst du sie ewig begrunden!=--Think not to find thy happiness out there in the whirl of riotous pleasure. Thy blessedness dwells in thy own breast; here must thou for ever establish it.
To hate self, and to seek a truly lovable being to love, is therefore the true and only virtue, for we are hateful because of lust. But as we cannot love what is outside us, we must love a being which is in us, yet not ourselves, and that is true of each and all men. Now the universal Being is alone such. The Kingdom of God is within us; the universal good is within us, is our very selves, yet not ourselves.
I see the depths which are in me of pride, curiosity and lust. There is no relation between me and God, nor Jesus Christ the Just One. But he has been made sin for me, all thy scourges are fallen upon him. He is more abominable than I, and far from abhorring me he holds himself honoured that I go to him and succour him.
God must reign over all, and all must be referred to him. In things of the flesh lust reigns especially, in men of intellect curiosity especially, in wisdom pride especially.
Then Jesus Christ came to tell men that they had no enemies but themselves, that their passions cut them off from God, that he came to destroy these, and give them his grace to unite them all in an holy Church, that he came to call into this Church Gentiles and Jews, that he came to destroy the idols of the former and the superstition of the latter. To this all men are opposed, not only by the natural opposition of lust; but above all, the kings of the earth, as had been foretold, gathered together to destroy this religion in its infancy. _Quare fremuerunt gentes. Reges terræ adversus Christum._
And I once chanced to paint a picture which represented a divine subject, and it was bought by the lover of her whom it represented, and he wished to strip it of its divine character so as to be able to kiss it without offence. But finally his conscience overcame his desire and his lust and he was compelled to remove the picture from his house. Now go thou, poet, and describe a beautiful woman without giving the semblance of {124} the living thing, and with it arouse such desire in men! If thou sayest: I will describe then Hell and Paradise and other delights and terrors,--the painter will surpass thee, because he will set before thee things which in silence will [make thee] give utterance to such delight, and so terrify thee as to cause thee to wish to take flight. Painting stirs the senses more readily than poetry. And if thou sayest that by speech thou canst convulse a crowd with laughter or tears, I rejoin that it is not thou who stirrest the crowd, it is the pathos of the orator, and his mirth. A painter once painted a picture which caused everybody who saw it to yawn, and this happened every time the eye fell on the picture, which represented a person yawning. Others have painted libidinous acts of such sensuality that they have incited those who gazed on them to similar acts, and poetry could not do this.
True love is still the same; the torrid zones, / And those more rigid ones, / It must not know; / For love grown cold or hot / Is lust or friendship, not / The thing we show.
If Wealth come, beware of him, the smooth, false friend! There is treachery in his proffered hand; his tongue is eloquent to tempt; lust of many harms is lurking in his eye; he hath a hollow heart; use him cautiously.--_Tupper._
Were a master to boast that he could remember all the forms and effects of nature, he would certainly appear to me to be graced with great ignorance, inasmuch as these effects are infinite and our memory is not sufficiently capacious to retain them. Therefore, O painter, beware lest in thee the lust of gain should overcome the honour of thy art, for the acquisition of honour is a much {93} greater thing than the glory of wealth. Thus, for this and for other reasons which could be given, first strive in drawing to express to the eye in a manifest shape the idea and the fancy originally devised by thy imagination; then go on adding or removing until thou art satisfied; then arrange men as models, clothed or nude, according to the intention of thy work, and see that, as regards dimension and size, in accordance with perspective there is no portion of the work which is not in harmony with reason and natural effects, and this will be the way to win honour in thy art.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace!
So in morals he gives charity to produce fruits contrary to lust.
Beauty in this Iron Age must turn From fluid living rainbow shapes to torn And sootened fragments, ashes in an urn On whose gray surface runes are traced by a Norn Who hopes to wake the Future to arise In Phoenix-fashion, and to shine with rays To blast the sight of modern men whose dyes Of selfishness and lust have stained our days.
Nature is content with little, grace with less, but lust with nothing.
The three kinds of lust have made three sects, and philosophers have done no other thing than follow one of the three lusts.
Such are my opinions, and each day of my life I bless my Redeemer who has implanted them in me, who has transformed me, a man full of weakness, misery, and lust, of pride and ambition, into a man exempt from all these evils, by the power of his grace, to which all the glory is due; since of myself I have only misery and sin.
Lachen, Weinen, Lust und Schmerz / Sind Geschwister-Kinder=--Laughing and weeping, pleasure and pain, are cousins german.
The God of Christians is a God who makes the soul perceive that he is her only good, that her only rest is in him, her only joy in loving him; who makes her at the same time abhor the obstacles which withhold her from loving him with all her strength. Her two hindrances, self-love and lust, are insupportable to her. This God makes her perceive that the root of self-love destroys her, and that he alone can heal.
There is a lust in man no charm can tame, / Of loudly publishing his neighbour's shame; / On eagle's wings immortal scandals fly, / While virtuous actions are but born and die.
Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, / Auri sacra fames?=--To what lust dost thou not drive mortal hearts, thou accursed lust for gold?
The prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our Religion, are not of such a nature that we can say they are absolutely convincing. But they are also of such a kind, that none can say that it is unreasonable to believe in them. Thus there is both evidence and obscurity to enlighten some and blind others; but the evidence is such that it surpasses or at least equals the evidence to the contrary, so that it is not reason which can determine us not to follow it, and therefore it can only be lust and malice of heart. And by this means there is evidence enough to condemn, and not enough to convince; so it appears in those who follow it, that it is grace and not reason which causes them to follow it; and in those who fly it, it is lust, not reason, which causes them to fly it.
The true religion teaches our duties; our weaknesses, pride and lust; and the remedies, humility and mortification.
Past are three summers since she first beheld The ocean; all around the child await Some exclamation of amazement here. She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased, _Is this the mighty ocean? is this all?_ That wondrous soul Charoba once possest,-- Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold, Soul discontented with capacity,-- Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say She was enchanted by the wicked spells Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed The western winds have landed on our coast? I since have watcht her in lone retreat, Have heard her sigh and soften out the name.
Shall it be that of the philosophers, who proposed as the only good the good which is in ourselves? Is this the true good? Have they found a remedy for our evils? Is the pride of man cured by equalling him with God? Have those who would level us to the brutes, or the Mahomedans who present us with pleasures of the world as the sole good, even in eternity, found any remedy for our lusts? What religion then will teach us to cure our pride and our lust? What religion will teach us our good, our duty, the infirmity which turns us from it, the cause of this infirmity, the remedies which can cure it, and the means of obtaining those remedies? All other religions have failed, let us see what the wisdom of God can do.
_Midrasch Tillim_ on Ps. iv.: "Stand in awe and sin not." Stand in awe and be afraid of your lust, and it will not lead you into sin. And on Ps. xxxvi. "The wicked has said in his heart: Let not the fear of God be before me." That is to say that the malignity natural to man has said that to the wicked.
There are the four powers: memory, intellect, sensuality and lust. The first two are intellectual, the others sensual. Of the five senses, sight, hearing, smell are with difficulty prevented; touch and taste not at all. Taste follows smell in the case of dogs and other greedy animals.
_Typical._--God availed himself of the lust of the Jews to make them avail for Jesus Christ.
Most of the water, however, did not run into the wall, but down it, because water, like cowardice and lust, always finds the lowest level.
Die Lust zu reden kommt zu rechter Stunde, / Und wahrhaft fliesst das Wort aus Herz und Munde=--The inclination to speak comes at the right hour, and the word flows true from heart and lip.
The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.
Friendship is too pure a pleasure for a mind cankered with ambition or the lust of power and grandeur.
_Holiness._--_Effundam spiritum meum._--All nations had been in unbelief and lust; the whole world was now ablaze with love. Princes quitted their state, maidens suffered martyrdom. This power sprang from the advent of Messiah, this was the effect and these the tokens of his coming.
Mich schuf aus groberm Stoffe die Natur, / Und zu der Erde zieht mich die Begierde=--Out of coarser clay has Nature created me, and I am drawn by lust to the dust.
Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed.
They allow lust free play, and restrict scruples, whereas they should do the exact contrary.
Vom Vater hab' ich die Statur, / Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren; / Von Mutterchen die Frohnatur, / Und Lust zu fabulieren=--From my father inherit I stature and the earnest conduct of life; from motherkin my cheerful disposition and pleasure in fanciful invention.
There are those who see clearly that man has no other enemy than lust, which turns him from God, and not God, and that there is no other good but God, not a fat land. Let those who believe that the good of man is in the flesh, and evil that which turns him away from sensual pleasures, besot themselves with them and die in them. But those who seek God with their whole heart, whose only ill is not to see him, whose only desire is to possess him, whose only enemies are those who would turn them from him, who are afflicted when they are surrounded and overwhelmed by such enemies, may take comfort, for I declare to them this joyful news: there is for them a Redeemer, whom I will show them; I will show them that there is for them a God, and I will not show him to others. I will show them that a Messiah has been promised, who will deliver them from their enemies, and that one has come to deliver them from their iniquities, not from their enemies.
More like longing. Uncomfortably like hope. I dashed that thought quickly, but suddenly, I wanted to fuck him. We could call it lust. We could call it convenience.
La gola e'l sonno e l'oziose piume / Hanno del mondo ogni vertu sbandita=--Lust, sleep, and idleness have banished every virtue out of the world.
Auri sacra fames=--The accursed lust of gold.
All faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morality in lust and in grace.
History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power have destroyed knowledge of immeasurable value which truly belongs to us all. We must not let it happen again.
And there 's a lust in man no charm can tame Of loudly publishing our neighbour's shame; On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly, While virtuous actions are but born and die.
Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder. -- Sigmund Freud
"...if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world." - Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
It was Penguin lust... at its ugliest.
The Great Movie Posters: A mis-spawned murderous abomination from the nether reaches of an unimaginable hell. -- The Killer of Castle Brood (1967) NEW -- SICKENING HORROR to make your STOMACH TURN and FLESH CRAWL! -- Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968)
-- Five Bloody Graves (1969)
The family that slays together stays together.
-- Bloody Mama (1970)
If I could stick my pen in my heart, I would spill it all over the stage. Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, Would you think the boy was strange? Ain't he strange? ... If I could stick a knife in my heart, Suicide right on the stage, Would it be enough for your teenage lust, Would it help to ease the pain? Ease your brain? -- Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'N Roll"
The Great Movie Posters: When You're Six Tons -- And They Call You Killer -- It's Hard To Make Friends... -- Namu, the Killer Whale (1966) Meet the Girls with the Thermo-Nuclear Navels! -- Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966) A GHASTLY TALE DRENCHED WITH GOUTS OF BLOOD SPURTING FROM THE VICTIMS OF A CRAZED MADMAN'S LUST. -- A Taste of Blood (1967)
It used to be the fun was in The capture and kill. In another place and time I did it all for thrills. -- Lust to Love
Young men and young women may work systematically six days in the week and rise fresh in the morning, but let them attend modern dances for only a few hours each evening and see what happens. The Waltz, Polka, Gallop and other dances of the same kind will be disastrous in their effects to both sexes. Health and vigor will vanish like the dew before the sun. It is not the extraordinary exercise which harms the dancer, but rather the coming into close contact with the opposite sex. It is the fury of lust craving incessantly for more pleasure that undermines the soul, the body, the sinews and nerves. Experience and statistics show beyond doubt that passionate excessive dancing girls can hardly reach twenty-five years of age and men thirty-one. Even if they reached that age they will in most instances be broken in health physically and morally. This is the claim of prominent physicians in this country. -- Quote from a 1910 periodical
Poetry, good sir, in my opinion, is like a tender virgin, very young, and extremely beautiful, whom divers other virgins--namely, all the other sciences--make it their business to enrich, polish, and adorn; and to her it belongs to make use of them all, and on her part to give a lustre to them all.--_Cervantes._
6:17. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power.
15:5. The sight whereof enticeth the fool to lust after it, and he loveth the lifeless figure of a dead image.
6:22. And when the third night is past, thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust, that in the seed of Abraham thou mayst obtain a blessing in children.
All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity.
I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All we Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempest--worse than a tempest! Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am not a cultivated man, brother, but I've thought a lot about this. It's terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve them as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water. Beauty! I can't endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What's still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I'd have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own ache. Listen, now to come to facts."