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I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.

Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.

It's true Heaven forbids some pleasures, but a compromise can usually be found.

Living big and joyful and content is almost always the result of our finding satisfaction in life's ordinary day-to-day pleasures. And God must be fond of them, too, for He made so many of them for us to enjoy.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Pleasure has ever more been represented by poets and by painters as clothed in perpetual smiles and adorned with the richest jewels; and in real life, we have known many who, allured by her deceptions, blandishments, and hollow but showy temptations, have followed as she pointed until ruin has befallen them.

All desirable things... are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.