quotations about pleasure
The pleasure-pain mechanism in the body of man--and in the bodies of all the living organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness--serves as an automatic guardian of the organism's life. The physical sensation of pleasure is a signal indicating that the organism is pursuing the right course of action. The physical sensation of pain is a warning signal of danger, indicating that the organism is pursuing the wrong course of action, that something is impairing the proper function of its body.
AYN RAND
The Virtue of Selfishness
Many know how to please, but know not when they have ceased to give pleasure.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
We are so constituted that we can gain intense pleasure only from the contrast, and only very little from the condition itself.
SIGMUND FREUD
Civilization and Its Discontents
Every act by which pleasure is reaped, without any result of pain, is pure gain to happiness; every act whose results of pain are less than the results of pleasure, is good, to the extent of the balance in favour of happiness.
JEREMY BENTHAM
Deontology
During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
In the life of man there are no two moments of pleasure exactly alike, any more than there are two leaves of identical shape upon the same tree.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Everywhere there is pleasure you will find a woman in disguise.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
Cool Memories
Pleasure is a hedonistic reflex, a burning impulse to abandon rational thought altogether and immerse oneself in the moment.
GENE WALLENSTEIN
The Pleasure Instinct
Yet, sluggard, wake, and gull thy soul no more
With earth's false pleasures, and the world's delight,
Whose fruit is fair and pleasing to the sight,
But sour in taste, false as the putrid core:
Thy flaring glass is gems at her half light;
She makes thee seeming rich, but truly poor:
She boasts a kernel, and bestows a shell;
Performs an inch of her fair-promis'd ell:
Her words protest a heav'n; her works produce a hell.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
The highest pleasure is only consciousness of freedom from the deepest pain.
JAMES PARTON
Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
The Puritans thought they could simply repress man's sexual nature, and they reaped a whirlwind as a result. Their code of sexual morality -- which became America's -- was nothing more than a set of rules laid down by people who believed that all pleasure was suspect.
HUGH HEFNER
Playboy, January 1974