“Tis easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.”

“It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy all of those that follow it.”

“Please don’t carve me another heart—‘tis easier to photosynthesize than to love”

“There’s only one thing worse than not satisfying a desire. And that is not to feel any desire.”

“Did I have a heart to be contented? Well, no, not particularly. I had a tendency to be discontented: ambitious, dissatisfied, fretful, and tough to please...It's easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.”

“Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry.”