Human desire never ends — not because we are ungrateful, but because longing is part of what makes us alive. Even when life gives us what we want, we discover new things to want. This isn't a complaint; it's an honest description of how deeply we are capable of feeling.
Quote by Mirza Ghalib: “I have thousands of desires, each worth dying for; many have been fulfilled, yet I yearn for more.”
I have thousands of desires, each worth dying for; many have been fulfilled, yet I yearn for more.
Insight
Historical Context
Ghalib wrote this ghazal during the declining years of the Mughal Empire, when Delhi was increasingly under British East India Company control. The political and cultural world he had known was dissolving around him, lending his expressions of personal longing an additional weight of collective loss.
About the Author
The preeminent Urdu and Persian poet of the Mughal twilight era, born in Agra in 1797. His ghazals explored desire, loss, and mysticism with unmatched linguistic sophistication, and his work remains the cornerstone of the Urdu literary canon.
View all quotes by Mirza Ghalib