4900. There is more pleasure in loving, than in being belov'd.

Pleasure is not the cause of happiness; rather, it is the effect.

I give so much pleasure to so many people. Why can I not get some pleasure for myself?

Pleasure cannot be shared; like Pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give Pleasure to our Lovers or bestow Charity upon the Needy, we do so, not to gratify the object of our Benevolence, but only ourselves. For the Truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel, in order that we may enhance the sense of our own Power....

Anyone who is observant, who discovers the person they have always dreamed of, knows that sexual energy comes into play before sex even takes place. The greatest pleasure isn't sex, but the passion with which it is practiced. When the passion is intense, then sex joins in to complete the dance, but it is never the principal aim.

So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.

He that loves pleasure, must for pleasure fall.

Men may thus have several sorts of pleasures. The true pleasure is that for which they give up another.

It often gives a lady a pleasure to give her lover a pang.

Sex is excitement, seeks satisfaction and soon loses interest - selfishness. Making love is passionate, fulfilling and does not look for an end - selflessness.

Pleasure is a good, but not the good.

Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem.

… it is less imperatively my duty to give pleasure than it is to alleviate pain. If someone else is not actually suffering then it seems more acceptable to leave to them … the provision of their own pleasures.