Quotes about Pleasure

Men must read for amusement as well as for knowledge.

Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I'll tell you their philosophy of life.

Others may know pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.

Beware, therefore, lest thou strive too earnestly after some desire which thou hast conceived, without taking counsel of Me; lest haply it repent thee afterwards, and that displease thee which before pleased, and for which thou didst long as for a great good.

Moreover, virtue is not concerned with the amount of pleasure experienced by the external sense, as this depends on the disposition of the body; what matters is how much the interior appetite is affected by that pleasure.

Hence it is predicated chiefly of the virtuous; then of the pleasant; and lastly of the useful.

When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, What life, what glorious eagerness it is, Then mark how full Possession falls from this, How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit

A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and diminishes pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction; it may even lead to depression or physical illness.

The pleasure principle is an artificial creation of psychology. Pleasure is not the goal of our aspirations, but the consequence of attaining them.

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times.

When man can't find meaning in his life, he distracts himself with pleasure.

To be sure, the term, will to power, was coined by Nietzsche rather than Adler, and the term, will to pleasure—standing for Freud's pleasure principle—is my own and not Freud's.