"Nothing has value except for the hunger one has for it."

-- Camille Corot

"The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness."

-- Eric Hoffer

"Stretched and stressed in the pursuit of our worldly interests, we have no idea of the immense relief we would feel if we set aside our burden, that is if we renounced our effort to affirm ourselves at all costs against the order of the world, and at the expense of others."

-- Hulin

"Do not try to make things happen the way you want, but want what happens to happen the way it happens, and you will be happy."

-- Epictetus

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."

-- George Bernard Shaw

"In our quest for having, we give up our freedom."

-- William James

"Thy lot or portion of life is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it."

-- The Caliph Ali

"If thou needs anything and cannot find it, come to me and I will tell you how to get along without it."

-- Etta Macey

"If a man could have half his wishes he would double his troubles."

-- Ben Franklin

"Rather than pay attention to what everyone considers 'desirable,' think of what is of solid, practical use."

-- Michael LaFargue

"Nothing prevents our being natural so much as the desire to appear so."

-- Rochefoucauld

"To the extent that we become obsessed with our wanting, we suffer."

-- Steve Hagen

"Where they love they do not desire, and where they desire they do not love."

-- Sigmund Freud

"I've learned that my personal pain comes from the difference between what is happening and what I think ought to be happening."

-- Spencer Johnson

"Let us not kill our enemies but kill their desire to kill."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

"Whatever we strongly resist comes to us faster than what we strongly want."

-- Elizabeth Brenner

"Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else."

-- Andre Gide

"Many of us get so caught up in pursuing things of outer value that we forget that inner value -- the rapture that is associated with being alive -- is what it is all about."

-- Joseph Campbell

"Life will give you what you ask of her if only you ask long enough and plainly enough."

-- E. Nesbit

"Not believing your own thoughts, you are free from the primal desire: the thought that reality should be different than it is."

-- Byron Katie