Wishes

See also: Hope

Wishes are hopes or desires for something. Fictionally, wishes can be used as plot devices. In folklore, opportunities for "making a wish" or for wishes to "come true" or "be granted" are themes that are sometimes used.

Quotes

Man wants but little here below
Nor wants that little long,"
'Tis not with me exactly so;
But 'tis so in the song.
My wants are many, and, if told,
Would muster many a score;
And were each wish a mint of gold,
I still should long for more. ~ John Quincy Adams

If everything proceeded according to their wishes, they would not understand what it means to follow God. ~ John Calvin

Cold fire used to inspire all not now
These are tired, maybe they'll find their niche
Or resort to wish. ~ Michael Cosgrove, Dryden Mitchell, Tye Zamora, Terence Corso

And the evil wish is most evil to the wisher. ~ Hesiod

I wish I knew the good of wishing. ~ Henry S. Leigh

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing.
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true. ~ Ned Washington lyrics, sung by Cliff Edwards

• Every wish
  Is like a prayer—with God.
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book II.

• If everything proceeded according to their wishes, they would not understand what it means to follow God.
  • John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life Page 53

• Genie: Uh, rule number one: I can't kill anybody. (He slices his head off with his finger.) So don't ask. Rule number two (He puts his head back on): I can't make anyone fall in love with anyone else. (His head turns into a giant pair of lips which kiss Aladdin.) You little punim, there. (Lies flat, then gets up and transforms into a green, slimy zombie with a Peter Lorre accent.) Rule number three: I can't bring people back from the dead. It's not a pretty picture, (He grabs Aladdin and shakes him) I don't like doing it! (He poofs back to normal.) Other than that, you got it.
  • Genie as interpreted by Robin Williams in Aladdin (1992 Disney film), written by Ron Clements, John Musker, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio, (1992).

• What you wish to be true is all that matters, regardless of the facts.
  • Stephen Colbert New York Magazine interview (16 October 2006)

• Proud, proud is to hear it all yeah yeah
  Proud ah proud, proud is to watch us fall yeah yeah
  Make a wish, make a succotash wish
  You live the pompous life
  Throw kisses all the time
  Make wishes, don't break mine
  Make a wish, make a succotash wish
  You live the pompous life
  Throw kisses all the time
  Don't break mine, don't break mine
  Cold fire used to inspire all not now
  These are tired, maybe they'll find their niche
  Or resort to wish
  • Michael Cosgrove, Dryden Mitchell, Tye Zamora, Terence Corso; Alien Ant Farm, Wish from the album ANThology, New Noize and DreamWorks Records (2001)

• But there is little gain to be had from wishes, the last attempt at a solution for the weak and the lazy.
  • Peter Crowther and James Lovegrove, The Trembler on the Axis (1994), in Edward E. Kramer and Richard Gilliam (eds.) Tales of the White Wolf, (ISBN 1-56504-175-5).

• If your heart is in your dream
  No request is too extreme
  When you wish upon a star
  As dreamers do
  Fate is kind
  She brings to those who love
  The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing.
  Like a bolt out of the blue
  Fate steps in and sees you through
  When you wish upon a star
  Your dreams come true.

• Pinochio, When You Wish Upon a Star, Ned Washington lyrics, sung by Cliff Edwards, Disney Studio Chorus, (1940)

• If a man could half his wishes he would double his Troubles.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard (1752).

• Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.
  • Anonymous as quoted by W. W. Jacobs in The Monkeys Paw (1902).

• If Wishes were Horses, Beggars would ride.
  • James Kelly, Scottish Proverbs (1721).

• Anakin Skywalker: Believe me, I wish that I could just wish away my feelings, but I can't.
  • Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones written by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales, (May 16, 2002)

• Comics speak, without qualm or sophistication, to the innermost ears of the wishful self. The response is like that of a thirsty traveler who suddenly finds water in the desert - he drinks to satiation.
  • William Moulton Marston The American Scholar Winter 1943/4 issue, pp.35-44

• You pursue, I fly; you fly, I pursue; such is my humor. What you wish, Dondymus, I do not wish, what you do not wish, I do.
  • Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book V, Epistle 83.

• One does not attain everything he wishes for. / Winds blow counter to what the ships desire.
  • Al-Mutanabbi, from the poem Bima At-Taʿallulu, line 12

• Henry: There ain't no such thing as magic, is there?

Bollie: I guess not, Henry. Or maybe...maybe there is magic. And maybe there's wishes, too. I guess the trouble is...there's not enough people around to believe...

• Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone "The Big Tall Wish", (April 8, 1960)

• Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
  I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act IV, scene 5, line 93. "Thy wish was father to that thought." Idea found in Arrian—Anabasis. I, Chapter VII. Æschylus—Prometh. Vinct. I. 928. Achilles Tatius—De Leucippes, Book VI. 17. Heliodorus, Book VIII. Cæsar—De Bello Gallico, III. 18. Quintilian—Institutes, Book VI, Chapter II, Section V. (Ed. Bonnell). (1861).

• Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
  • William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act IV, scene 3, line 237.

• Jeannie: Your wish is my command, Master.
  • I Dream of Jeannie The Lady in the Bottle (1965), written by Sidney Sheldon

• What most we wish, with ease we fancy near.
  • Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-1728), III.

• Wishing, of all employments is the worst.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IV, line 71.

• He calls his wish, it comes; he sends it back,
  And says he called another; that arrives,
  Meets the same welcome; yet he still calls on;
  Till one calls him, who varies not his call,
  But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound,
  Till Nature dies, and judgment sets him free;
  A freedom far less welcome than this chain.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IV. Lines near end.

• Man wants but little, nor that little long;
  How soon must he resign his very dust,
  Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IV, line 118.

• What folly can be ranker. Like our shadows,
  Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night V, line 661.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 882-83.

• "Man wants but little here below
  Nor wants that little long,"
  'Tis not with me exactly so;
  But 'tis so in the song.
  My wants are many, and, if told,
  Would muster many a score;
  And were each wish a mint of gold,
  I still should long for more.
  • John Quincy Adams, The Wants of Man.

• O, that I were where I would be,
  Then would I be where I am not;
  For where I am I would not be,
  And where I would be I can not.
  • Arthur Quiller-Couch, quoted in Ship of Stars, Chapter XII.

• Was man in der Jugend wünscht, hat man im Alter die Fülle.
  • What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wahrheit und Dichtung. Motto to Part II.

• Man wants but little here below,
  Nor wants that little long.
  • Oliver Goldsmith, The Hermit, Stanza 8.

• And the evil wish is most evil to the wisher.
  • Hesiod, Works and Days, V. 264.

• Little I ask; my wants are few;
  I only wish a hut of stone
  (A very plain brown stone will do),
  That I may call my own;
  And close at hand is such a one
  In yonder street that fronts the sun.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Contentment.

• With all thy sober charms possest,
  Whose wishes never learnt to stray.
  • Langhorne, Poems, II, p. 123. (Park's Ed.).

• I wish I knew the good of wishing.
  • Henry S. Leigh, Wishing.

• Vous l'avez voulu, vous l'avez voulu, George Dandin, vous l'avez voulu.
  • You have wished it so, you have wished it so, George Dandin, you have wished it so.
  • Molière, George Dandin, Act I, scene 9.

• Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious and free,
  First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea.
  • Thomas Moore, Remember Thee.

• If I live to grow old, as I find I go down,
  Let this be my fate in a country town;
  May I have a warm house, with a stone at my gate,
  And a cleanly young girl to rub my bald pate.
  May I govern my passions with an absolute sway,
  Grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,
  Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.
  • Walter Pope, The Old Man's Wish; first appeared in A Collection of Thirty one Songs. (1685).

• I've often wished that I had clear,
  For life, six hundred pounds a year,
  A handsome house to lodge a friend,
  A river at my garden's end,
  A terrace walk, and half a rood
  Of land, set out to plant a wood.
  • Jonathan Swift, Imitation of Horace, Book II. Satire 6.

• Quoniam id fieri quod vis non potest
  Id velis quod possis.
  • As you can not do what you wish, you should wish what you can do.
  • Terence, Andria, II. 1. 6.

• On ne peut désirer ce qu'on ne connaît pas.
  • We cannot wish for that we know not.
  • Voltaire, Zaïre. I. 1.

• Wishers and woulders be small householders.
  • Vulgaria Stambrigi, published by Wynkyn de Worde (early 16th century).