One must know oneself as one is, not as one wishes to be, which is merely an ideal and therefore fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish to be.
If you wish to assured of the truth of Christianity, try it. Believe, and if thy belief be right, that insight which gradually transmutes faith into knowledge will be the reward of thy belief.
And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.
Paradise is hidden in each one of use, it is concealed within me too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life.
We intend freedom and justice to conquer. Yes, we do have a creed and we wish others to share it. But it is not part of our policy to impose our beliefs by force or threat of force.
We only want to link up with people whom we like, admire, and trust. ... We do not wish to join with managers who lack admirable qualities, no matter how attractive the prospects of their business. We've never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person.
My weaknesses... I wish I could come up with something. I'd probably have the same pause if you asked me what my strengths are. Maybe they're the same thing.
There seems almost a general wish of descrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.
The State must act as the guardian of a millennial future in the face of which the wishes and the selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit.
Earnsha was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point - one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed - they contrived in the end to reach it.