“This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.”

Source: Odes to Common Things

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Source: The Fountainhead

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968), Ch. 15 : The Scroll Marked VIII, p. 88.

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), II : The Starting-Point
Context: Knowledge is employed in the service of the necessity of life and primarily in the service of the instinct of personal preservation. The necessity and this instinct have created in man the organs of knowledge and given them such capacity as they possess. Man sees, hears, touches, tastes and smells that which it is necessary for him to see, hear, touch, taste and smell in order to preserve his life. The decay or loss of any of these senses increases the risks with which his life is environed, and if it increases them less in the state of society in which we are actually living, the reason is that some see, hear, touch, taste and smell for others. A blind man, by himself and without a guide, could not live long. Society is an additional sense; it is the true common sense.

11 February 1869, page 23
John of the Mountains, 1938

To a raiding band, after protecting an ambushed white soldier with her shawl, as quoted in Eagle Woman Who All Look At, 2010, South Dakota Hall of Fame – Champions of Excellence, 2019-08-15 http://sdexcellence.org/Eagle_Woman_Who_All_Look_At_2010,

Alternatively, "This Man belongs to me now! You cannot mutilate him nor touch him!" as quoted in [Joseph Agonito, Brave Hearts: Indian Women of the Plains, https://books.google.com/books?id=QZ7RDAAAQBAJ, 1 October 2016, TwoDot, 978-1-4930-1906-9]

Biomedical Ethics and Jewish Law http://www.myjewishlearning.com/ideas_belief/bioethics/Bioethics_Euthanasia_TO/Bioethics_EuthanMedi_Rosner.htm, published by KTAV http://www.ktav.com/
Context: One who is in a dying condition is regarded as a living person in all respects. It is not permitted to bind his jaws, to stop up the organs of the lower extremities, or to place metallic or cooling vessels upon his navel in order to prevent swelling. He is not to be rubbed or washed, nor is sand or salt to be put upon him until he expires. He who touches him is guilty of shedding blood. To what may he be compared? To a flickering flame, which is extinguished as soon as one touches it. Whoever closes the eyes of the dying while the soul is about to depart is shedding blood. One should wait a while; perhaps he is only in a swoon.