quotations about the body
I speak two languages, Body and English.
MAE WEST
attributed, Body Language Pocketbook
The body borrows the elements of its blood from the whole world, and the mind its belief.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Journals, 1864
No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength of his own to press forward with a due degree of watchfulness, and the great majority are kept down with such great weakness that they stagger and halt and even creep on the ground, and so make very slight advances.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
WALT WHITMAN
I Sing the Body Electric
The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and is the means whereby alone the soul can establish relations with the universe.
HARRY ROBERTS
New Statesman, August 29, 1931
The body is an affliction of the soul; it is Hell, Fate, a burden, a necessity, a strong chain, and a tormenting punishment.
PALLADAS
attributed, Greek Anthology
My body glistens on the flesh of the great gods.
LAHAR
Debate between Sheep and Grain
Sometimes one would almost like to say: what really matters is only the mind. But where can you find a mind without a body?
FAUSTO CERCIGNANI
attributed, Simply Transcribed
It is a great thing to take a human body. Whoever comes to the earth must do work.
HAIDAKHAN BABAJI
The Teachings of Babaji
What a plastic little creature he is! So shifty, so adaptive! His body a chest of tools.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Letters and Social Aims
The Church says: the body is a sin.
Science says: the body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The Body says: I am a fiesta.
EDUARDO GALEANO
Walking Words
The beautiful body on the oblong bed
Beautiful as a sword, that has for hilt
Arms whitely crossed behind a silver head.
WINIFRED WELLES
Design for a Blade
Can anyone foretell in what condition his body will be, I do not say a year hence, but this evening?
CICERO
De Finibus
The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Lantern-Bearers and Other Essays
Joined together with bones and sinews, having a plastering of skin and flesh, covered with hide, the body is not seen as it really is--full of intestines, full of stomach, of the lump of the liver, of bladder, of heart, of lungs, of kidneys and of spleen, of mucus, of saliva, and of sweat, and of lymph, of blood, of synovial fluid, of bile, and of fat, ... and its hollow head is filled with brain. A fool, overwhelmed by ignorance, thinks of it as beautiful, but when it lies dead, swollen up and discoloured, cast away in a cemetery, relatives have no regard for it. Dogs devour it, and jackals, and wolves and worms.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Sutta Nipata
Your body is like a bar of soap. It gradually wears down from repeated use.
DICK ALLEN
Chicago Tribune, March 30, 1975
The human body is the magazine of inventions, the patent office, where are the models from which every hint is taken. All the tools and engines on earth are only extensions of its limbs and senses.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Society and Solitude
My poor gentlemanlike carcass.
BEN JONSON
Every Man in His Humour
My body is nothing without me.
TOM STOPPARD
Rock 'n' Roll
Every body is subject to change, so comes it to pass that every body is mortal.
CICERO
De Natura Deorum