Variant translation: There is but one temple in the Universe and that is the Body of Man.
As inscribed on the Library of Congress, quoted in Handbook of the New Library of Congress (1897) by Herbert Small, p. 53
Novalis (1829)
Context: There is but one Temple in the World; and that is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier than this high form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hand on a human body.
“Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.”
“One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.”
Source: The Dharma Bums
“Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.”
On Sir William Temple (1838)
A lecture at Königsberg (1775), as quoted in A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources (1946) by H. L. Mencken, p. 1043
“Your body is the temple of your soul. Your soul is God's temple.”
Source: The Yellow Book, 1974, p.79
“Make your body the temple of God.”
[Chekki, Danesh A., Religion and Social System of the Vīraśaiva Community, http://books.google.com/books?id=x7JZMy1qntgC&pg=PA48, 1 January 1997, Greenwood Publishing Group, 978-0-313-30251-0, 48–]
“Your body is a temple, whether you're a Jew or not.”
KFI-Los Angeles radio broadcast, October 8, 2000, available at AprilWinchell.com http://www.aprilwinchell.com/2000/10/08/kfi-sunday-october-2000/
“your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Address at the Rameswaram Temple on Real Worship
Context: It is in love that religion exists and not in ceremony, in the pure and sincere love in the heart. Unless a man is pure in body and mind, his coming into a temple and worshipping Shiva is useless. The prayers of those that are pure in mind and body will be answered by Shiva, and those that are impure and yet try to teach religion to others will fail in the end. External worship is only a symbol of internal worship; but internal worship and purity are the real things. Without them, external worship would be of no avail. Therefore you must all try to remember this.
People have become so degraded in this Kali Yuga that they think they can do anything, and then they can go to a holy place, and their sins will be forgiven. If a man goes with an impure mind into a temple, he adds to the sins that he had already, and goes home a worse man than when he left it.
