Austen Jane 1775-1817
Emma
Surprinses are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced,
and the inconvenience is often considerable.

Austen Jane 1775-1817
Emma
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness
destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation?

Bacon Francis 1561-1626
The Advancement of Learning
For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of
knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.

Bacon Francis 1561-1626
Essays ‚Of Truth'
A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.

Bagehot Walter 1826-1877
The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

Beecham Sir Thomas 1879-1961
(to a cellist - attributed)
Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of
giving pleasure to thousands - and all you can do is scratch it.

Behn Aphra 1640-1689
The Lover's Watch: Four o'clock
Love ceases to be a pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret.

Behn Aphra 1640-1689
The Rover
Variety is the soul of pleasure.
Belloc Hilaire 1870-1953
Fatigue
I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.
But money gives me pleasure all the Time.

Bierce Ambrose 1842-c.1914
The Devil's Dictionary
Debauche, n: one who has so earnestly pursued pleasure
that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.

Buston Charles
To make pleasure pleasant, shorten.

Byron Lord 1788-1824
Don Juan
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.

Caine Michael 1933-
in Alfie
„My understanding of Women goes only as far as the pleasure."

Confucius 551-479 BC
Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.

Cowper William 1731-1800
The Task ‚The Timepiece'
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.

Critchley Julian 1930-
The only safe pleasure for a parliamentarian is a bag of boiled sweets.

Defoe Daniel 1660-1731
The Complete English Tradesman
Pleasure is a thief to business.

Drabble Margaret 1939-
A Summer Bird-Cage
Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for
what one is compensates for the misery of being it.

Dryden John 1631-1700
The Indian Emperor
For all the happiness mankind can gain
Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.

Dryden John 1631-1700
There is a pleasure sure,
In being mad, which none but madmen know!

Florian Jean-Pierre Claris de 1755-1794
Célestine
Love's pleasure lasts but a moment; love's sorrow lasts all through life.

Gay John 1685-1732
‚The Toilette'
A miss for pleasure, and a wife for breed.

Henrich Tommy
Catching a fly ball is a pleasure, but
knowing what to do with it is a business.

Holmes Oliver Wendell Jr. 1841-1935
A sense of wrongdoing is an enhancement of pleasure.

Horace 65-8 BC
Epistles
No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

Huxley Aldous 1894-1963
Speed Provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

Jerrold Douglas 1803-1857
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I was a grave digger, or even
a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

Johnson Samuel 1709-1784
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Juvenal AD c.60-c.130
Satires
Revenge is always the pleasure of a paltry, feeble, tiny mind.

Keats John 1795-1821
‚Fancy'
Ever let the fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.

Keats John 1795-1821
‚Ode on Melancholy'
She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips.

La Bruyere Jean de 1645-1696
Les Caractères. ‚Des ouvrages de l'esprit'
The pleasure of criticizing robs us of the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.

La Rochefoucauld François Duc de 1613-1680
Maxims
If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noticing them in others.

Lamb Charles 1775-1834
‚Table Talk by the late Elia'
The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action
by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

 
Leigh H. S. 1837-1883
Carols of Cockayne
The rapturous, wild, and ineffable pleasure
Of drinking at somebody else's expense.

Lindbergh Anne Morrow 1906-
A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband,
but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

Macaulay Baron (Thomas Babington) 1800-1859
History of England
The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to
the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Marvell Andrew 1621-1678
„The Garden"
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness.

Mencken H. L. 1880-1956
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the
conversation of children in arms and men in love.

Mill John Stuart 1806-1873
Speech on Perfectibility
The great majority of those who speak of perfectibility as a dream, do so because
they fell that it is one which would afford them no pleasure if it were realized.

Milton John 1608-1674
‚Il Penseroso'
And add to these retirèd Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.

Moliére 1622-1673
La Critique de l'école des femmes
I shouldn't be surprised if the greatest rule of all weren't to give pleasure.

Moore Thomas 1779-1852
,,Oh! blame not the bard"
Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers,
Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame.

More Sir Thomas 1478-1535
We may not look at our pleasure to go to heaven in feather-beds; it is not the way.

Pope Alexander 1688-1744
An Essay on Man
Oh Happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! wnate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts th'eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die.

Proverbs and Sayings
French
The price spoils the pleasure.

Proverbs and Sayings
Prtuguese
Visits always give pleasure - if not the arrival, the departure.

Quarles Francis 1592-1644
Emblems
I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in the writing.

Rand Ayn 1905-1982
What is a demanding pleasure? A pleasure that demands the use of one's
mind; not in the sense of problem solving, but in the sense of exercising
discrimination, judgement, awareness.

Reynolds Sir Joshua 1723-1792
Discourses on Art
The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour
employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it.

Russell Bertrand 1872-1970
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Sarh 1st Duchess of Marlbourough 1660-1744
The Duke returned from the wars today and did pleasure me in his top-boots.

Selden John 1584-1654
Table Talk ‚Pleasure'
Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain.

Sidney Sir Philip 1554-1586
Certain Sonnets
Leave me, O Love which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust;
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.

Southerne Thomas 1660-1746
Sir Anthony Love
Love is but discovery:
When that is made, the pleasure's done.

Thackeray William Makepeace 1811-1863
The Rose and the Ring
Business first; pleasure afterwards.

Tillich Paul 1886-1965
The joy about our work is spoiled when we perform it not because of what we produce but because of the pleasure with which it can provide us, or the pain
against which it can protect us.

Voltaire 1694-1778
I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.

Waugh Evelyn 1903-1966
Vile Bodies
All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.

Wilde Oscar 1854-1900
The Picture of Dorian Gray
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

Wycherley William c. 1640-1716
The Country Wife
Go to your business, I say, pleasure, whilst
I go to my pleasure, business.

Yesenin Sergei 1895-1925
,,Pleasure's for the Bad"
It's always the good feel rotten.
Pleasure's for those who are bad.

Pleasure quotes, pleasure quotations, sayings about pleasure