limiting desires Quotes

Too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing...[We] need ...to set definite boundaries on our appetites.

The avarice person is ever in want; let your desired aim have a fixed limit.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire.

We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

There is a mistaken idea, ancient but still with us, that an overdose of anything from fornication to hot chocolate will teach restraint by the very results of its abuse.

I want to see Christianity enhance our humanity instead of rescue us from some fall. I don't want us to be depending on this supernatural God up in the sky; I want us to recognize that God is part of who we are and that we have to live out the meaning of God with other people. That means we must live in mutual respect and interdependence; it means we have to limit our own desires in order for the body politic to survive.

There is a saying in Tibetan that "at the door of the miserable rich man sleeps the contented beggar". The point of this saying is not that poverty is a virtue, but that happiness does not come with wealth, but from setting limits to one's desires, and living within those limits with satisfaction.