“My body separates me from all beings and all things. Only my body.”

“Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

“Saying that what we call our “selves” consist only of our bodies and that reason, soul, and love arise only from the body, is like saying that what we call our body is equivalent to the food that feeds the body. It is true that my body is only made up of digested food and that my body would not exist without food, but my body is not the same as food. Food is what the body needs for life, but it is not the body itself. The same thing is true of my soul. It is true that without my body there would not be that which I call my soul, but my soul is not my body. The soul may need the body, but the body is not the soul.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

“For the sake of all beings I have made this body pleasureless. Let them continually beat it, revile it, and cover it with filth. Let them play with my body. Let them laugh at it and ridicule it. What does it matter to me? I have given my body to them.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

“Tell them that we are all one living body that cannot be separated from nature.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body, nor even in the idea ‘I am the body.’ But limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake. In reality all existence, every form, is my own, within my consciousness. (…).”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

“My body gnaws at me from one side and my spirit gnaws at me from the other.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“I am not my body. My body is nothing without me.”

Tom Stoppard Rock 'n' Roll

“My body is foreign to me that body that sustains me and will, ultimately, kill me.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

“Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica