This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Good is the cause of love, as being its object. But good is not the object of the appetite, except as apprehended. And therefore love demands some apprehension of the good that is loved... Accordingly knowledge is the cause of love for the same reason as good is, which can be loved only if known." -
"It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is the perfect good, which quiets the appetite altogether since it would not be the last end if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, that is, of man’s appetite, is the universal good, just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident that nothing can quiet man’s will except the universal good. This is to be found not in any creature, but in God alone, because every creature has goodness by participation. Therefore God alone can satisfy the will of man." -
"The first impulse of conscience is apt to be right; the first impulse of appetite or passion is generally wrong. We should be faithful to the former, but suspicious of the latter." - Tyron Edwards
"Envy, appetite and ambition lead to ruin." - Eleazar ha-Kappar, alternate spelling Eliezer ha-Kappar
"Appetite is never satisfied, but remains in want and athirst." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL
"Temperance and labor are the two best physicians; the one sharpens the appetite - the other prevents indulgence to excess." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"It is certainly a very important lesson, to learn how to enjoy ordinary things, and to be able to relish your being, without the transport of some passion, or the gratification of some appetite." - Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
"You are to come to your study as to the table, with a sharp appetite, whereby that which you read may the better digest. He that has no stomach to his book will very hardly thrive upon it." - William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford
"There is no sense of weariness like that which closes a day of eager and unintermitted pursuit of pleasure. The apple is eaten and the core sticks in the throat. Expectation has given way to ennui, and appetite to satiety." - Christian Nestell Bovee
"In compelling man to eat that he may live, Nature gives an appetite to invite him, and pleasure to reward him." - Brillat-Savarin, fully Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin NULL
"Conquer thyself. Till you hast done this, thou are but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own." - Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton
"Read, and refine your appetite; learn to live upon instruction; feast your mind and mortify your flesh; read, and take your nourishment in at your eyes, shut up your mouth, and chew the cud of understanding." - William Congreve
"What distinguishes man from his innocent brothers, the animals... is not language, nor reason, nor even civilization... it is man's enormous appetite for suffering." - Georges Duhamel, Pen name Denis Thevenin
"Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end." - Tyron Edwards
"Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires." - Benjamin Franklin
"Belief in a future life is the appetite of reason." - Walter Savage Landor
"Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge. One great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected." - John Locke
"When secure you lack appetite." - Martial, full name Marcus Valarius Martialis NULL
"It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures." - William Shenstone
"The appetite grows with what it feeds on." - H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
"Disciplining one’s appetite may be the biggest spiritual challenge many of us will face this side of dying. In a world where the future of the planet depends on how many of us will agree to say not to excessive lifestyles, fasting can teach us that physical satisfaction is not the purpose of life." - Nancy Forest-Flier
"The enjoyments of both worlds will not satisfy the greedy man: burning fire always has an appetite." - Sa’ib of Tabriz, aka Mirza Muhammad Ali Sa'ib, Saib Isfahani or Sa'ib Of Esfahan NULL
"All the seven deadly sins are self destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages at least, lust and gluttony, avarice and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numbed with fear, never ceasing in its appetite, and it knows no gratification, but endless self torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat, which gnaws its own foot in an effort to escape." - Angus Wilson, fully Sir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson
"For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money." - Arne Garborg
"In education the appetite does indeed grow with eating. I have never known anyone to abandon study because they knew too much." - John Charles Polanyi
"True love begins when nothing is looked for in return. And if the habit of prayer is seen to be so important for teaching a man to love his fellow men, this is because no answer is given to his prayers. Your love is based on hatred when you wrap yourself up in a certain man or woman on whom you batten as a stock of food laid by and, like dogs snarling at teach other round their trough, you fall to hating anyone who casts even a glance at your repast. you call it love, this selfish appetite. No sooner is love bestowed on you than (even as in your false friendships) you convert this free gift into servitude and bondage and, from the very moment you are loved, you begin to fancy yourself wronged." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Since things that are found in the soul are of three kinds - passions, faculties, states of character, virtue must be one of these. By passions I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred, longing, emulation, pity, and in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure or pain; by faculties the things in virtue of which we are said to be capable of feeling these, for example, of becoming angry or being pained or feeling pity; by states of character the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions, for example, with reference to anger we stand badly if we feel it violently or too weakly, and well if we feel it moderately; and similarly with reference to the other passions. Now neither the virtues nor the vices are passions, because we are not called good or bad on the ground of our virtues and our vices, and because we are neither praised nor blamed for our passions (for the man who feels fear or anger is not praised, nor is the man who simply feels anger blamed, but the man who feels it in a certain way), but for our virtues and our vices we are praised or blamed." - Aristotle NULL
"The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent of opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point." - Aristotle NULL
"Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger or appetite." - Aristotle NULL
"Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite." - Aristotle NULL
"We have a keener appetite for the new than grasp of the old." - Cato the Elder, Marcus Porius Cato, aka Censorius (the Censor), Sapiens (the Wise), Priscus (the Ancient) NULL
"Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety." - Edmund Burke
"It is not poverty that causes sorrow, but covetous desires. Deliver yourself from appetite, and you will be free. He who is discontented with things present and allotted, is unskilled in life." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL
"Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace and happiness." - Henrik Ibsen, aka Henrik Johan Ibsen
"There is in the soul a taste for the good, just as there is in the body an appetite for enjoyment." - Joseph Joubert
"Life is what we are alive to. It is not length, but breadth. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, history, poetry, music, flowers, stars, God and eternal hopes, it is to be all but dead." - Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
"Reason should direct and appetite obey." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition. In the first instance, we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us." - Oliver Goldsmith
"Stop short of your appetite; eat less than you are able." - Ovid, formally Publius Ovidius Naso NULL
"In the friendship of the lover there is no real kindness; he has an appetite and wants to feed upon you. “Just as the wolf loves the lamb, so the lover adores his beloved.”" - Plato NULL
"He who least likes courting favor, ought also least to think of resenting neglect; to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animal-cule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity – all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan