Concupiscence Quotes

“[I]t is not by being richer or more powerful that a man becomes better; one is a matter of fortune, the other of virtue. Nor should she deem herself other than venal who weds a rich man rather than a poor, and desires more things in her husband than himself. Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection.”
― Héloïse, The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse

“All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“The Pelagianizing Romanist says, Lust, or concupiscence, brings forth sin, therefore it cannot be sin, because the mother cannot be the child. We reply, Concupiscence brings forth sin, therefore it must be sin, because child and mother must have the same nature. The grand sophism of Pelagianism is the assumption that sin is confined to acts, that guilty acts can be the product of innocent condition, that the effect can be sinful, yet the cause free from sin--that the unclean can be brought forth from the clean.”
― Charles Porterfield Krauth

“Let love therefore be what it will, my Uncle Toby fell into it—And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation so wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet, anything in this world more concupiscible than widow Wadman.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I had also pled, the whole year, to be wholly relieved of my romantic attachment; begged to stop loving so much. But I had finally been given to see that my desire was what made me human; that desire was my glory and my cross; that desire had given me a window onto the divine that would sustain me all my life. I had seen at least one person as God must us-for where did my eyes come from but God? - and that is a rare and precious gift.”
― Heather King, Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux

“The smoke from her cigarette passed beneath the nostrils of the brown and white girls, and their space-annihilating concupiscence seemed centered on mentholated smoke along.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., The Sirens of Titan