Mark Twain - Baruch Spinoza - Emily Bronte - Bertrand Russell - Margaret Atwood - Paul Auster - Aidan Chambers - Anton Chekhov - Salvador Dali - Red Dwarf TV - Arthur Schopenhauer - Proverbs - G K Chesterton - Jean-Louis Gassee - Oscar Wilde & Dorian Gray 2009 - Voltaire - C S Lewis - Euripides - Matthew Green - Virgil - Jane Austen - Sergei Yesenin - Daniel Defoe - Wilfred Owen - Edmund Spenser - William Shakespeare - John Wilmot - John Selden - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Leigh Hunt - Soren Kierkegaard - Christopher Marlowe - Marquis de Sade - Aldous Huxley - Emile Zola - Edgar Allan Poe - Benjamin Franklin - Frederick the Great - Lord Byron - Robert Burns - George Eliot - Whisky Galore! 1949 - John Webster - William Thackeray - John Keats - John F Kennedy - Lord Byron - House of Cards US TV - Suburra: Blood on Rome 2022 -
No man that has ever lived has done a thing to please God primarily. It was done to please himself, then God next. Mark Twain, A Biography
The ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads – Riches, Fame, and the Pleasures of Sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good. Baruch Spinoza
I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. Bertrand Russell
I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most. Margaret Atwood
Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head. Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies
Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people’s books, one’s own books – it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction. And often, very often, while browsing haphazardly, looking for nothing in particular, you pick up a volume that suddenly excites you, and you know that this one of all the others you must read. Those are great moments – and the books we come across like that are often the most memorable. Aidan Chambers
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable. Anton Chekhov
Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali. Salvador Dali
I’m a pleasure gelf. Red Dwarf s4e1: Camille, BBC 1991
Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure. Arthur Schopenhauer
Business before pleasure. Mid-19th century proverb
Shouldn’t atheists have an equal obligation to explain pleasure in a world of randomness? Where does pleasure come from? G K Chesterton
Adults tend to repress their pleasure. Sad to say, I think we become adults only through disappointment, grief, and lies. So of course gradually we become tough, less sensitive. Jean-Louis Gassee
There’s no shame in pleasure, Mr Gray. Dorian Gray 2009 starring Ben Barnes & Colin Firth & Ben Chaplin & Rachel Hurd-Wood & Johnny Harris & Rebecca Hall & Emilia Fox & Fiona Shaw & Maryan d'Abo & Caoline Goodall et al, director Oliver Parker
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. Oscar Wilde
Pleasure is the only thing we should live for. Oscar Wilde
My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Illusion is the first of all pleasures. Voltaire
Joy is never in our power, and pleasure often is. C S Lewis
Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings. Euripides
By happy alchemy of mind
They turn to pleasure all they find. Matthew Green, The Spleen, 1737
Everyone is dragged on by their favourite pleasure. Virgil, Eclogues
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other half. Jane Austen, Emma, 1816
It’s always the good feel rotten.
Pleasure’s for those who are bad. Sergei Yesenin
Pleasure is a thief to business. Daniel Defoe, 1660-1731, The Complete English Tradesman, 1725
The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when expectation is disappointed or gratified we want to be again expecting. Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures. Samuel Johnson
I shouldn’t be surprised if the greatest rule of all weren’t to give pleasure. Moliere aka Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
And gods will show us pleasures more than men’s. Wilfred Owen, Happiness
And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain. Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen
Dwell I but in the suburbs of your pleasure? William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar I ii 284-285, Portia to Brutus
Pleasure will be paid, one time or another. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night II iv 70, Feste
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. William Shakespeare, Othello II iii 269, Iago
What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeing joy.
Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week,
Or sells eternity to get a toy? William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, 211-214
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
Even in the moment that we call them ours. ibid. 867-868
What’s thy pleasure? William Shakespeare, The Tempest IV i 165, Ariel
‘Is there then no more?’
She cries, ‘All this to love and rapture’s due;
Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?’ John Wilmot, Lord Rochester, 1647-80, The Imperfect Enjoyment, 1680
Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain. John Selden, Table Talk, 1689
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree.
Where Alph, the sacred river ran,
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, Kubla Khan
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted. ibid.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice. ibid.
A pleasure so exquisite as almost to amount to pain. Leigh Hunt, 1848
Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we hurry past it. Søren Kierkegaard