Until the boy’s sexual wishes in regard to his mother become more intense and his father is perceived as an obstacle to them; from this the Oedipus complex originates.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
There is a difference between WISHING for a thing and being READY to receive it. No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it.
The world is not a wish-granting factory.[repeated often in the rest of the book]
Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
I wish I could say twelve things at once. I wish I could say all there was to say in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.
He who wisheth one day to fly, must first learn standing and walking and running and climbing and dancing: — one doth not fly into flying!
He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.
Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
An urgent wish is no guarantor of a sound solution.
A person could wish for one thing and speak of another, and their fate, their kismet, was the thing that could bring the two together.
