Quotes about body

A collection of quotes on the topic of body, use, other, doing.

Johnny Depp quote: “My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.”

Bob Marley quote: “The best curve on a woman's body is her smile. ”

Ernest Hemingway quote: “I hate a cramp, he thought. It is a treachery of one's own body.”

Quotes about body

“She kept saying “I love you,” every time they finished, every time he lost himself inside her, every time they reached that amazing ecstasy of two bodies that already know each other; But, deep down, she, little by little, had begun to doubt that “eternal love,” that verb so easy to conjugate.”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Love, Time

““Godín”, is said in Mexico of the office worker from nine to eighteen hours or of any other employee to whom his immediate boss says, during his first day of work and with all the naturalness in the world: “Welcome. From today, your body and soul belong to us.”

José Baroja book Sueño en Guadalajara y otros cuentos

Soul, World, Nature

“Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Love, Soul

“People in general, not just girls, but people who are younger are obviously extremely impressionable. And I do think it’s important. There's obviously a lot of different body images that are thrown around in society in general. Some things look like they’re more acceptable and some things are made to feel like they’re unacceptable. So, I think it’s very important that it empowers people in general. I think that anytime you can make someone who potentially might not feel as great about themselves as they should, feel better about themselves, I think that’s always a positive thing.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

Interview with Polish website Plejada (25 November 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqJC-ZSseU&t=552

People, Feeling, Girl, Thinking

“Everyone should consider his
body as a priceless gift from
one whom he loves above all, a
marvelous work of art, of
indescribable beauty, and
mystery beyond human conception, and so delicate that
a word, a breath, a look, nay, a
thought may injure it.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Love, Beauty, Art

“My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Tattoo

“We are just waves in time and space, changing continuously, and the illusion of individuality is produced through the concatenation of the rapidly succeeding phases of existence. What we define as likeness is merely the result of the symmetrical arrangement of molecules which compose our body.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Change, Time

“Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.”

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) austrian painter

Light

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Books, Reading

“When you feel the last bit of breath leaving their body, you're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!”

Ted Bundy book The Stranger Beside Me

Quoted by Bill Hagmaier. Rule, Ann (2009). The Stranger Beside Me (Paperback; updated 2009 ed.). New York: Pocket Books pages 380–96.

God, Feeling, Personality

“There is no need to carry me to another prison. My life is already ebbing away. I suggest that you nail me to a cross and burn me alive. My flaming body will be a torch to light my people on their path to freedom.”

Gavrilo Princip (1894–1918) Bosnian assassin

Said to the prison warden on being moved to another prison; as quoted by Borivoje Jevtic (1914) http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand

Life, People, Freedom, Light

“The rich
Will make temples for Siva
what shall I, a poor man, do?
My legs are pillars,
the body the shrine,
the head the cupola of gold,
Listen, O! Lord:
Standing things shall fall,
that which moves shall stay”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

[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–]

“I admit willingly that after the Normandy battles, my unit was composed of young fanatic soldiers. Many of them had lost their parents, or brothers and sisters in the bombardments. Some had seen for themselves at Cologne where thousands of bodies were crushed after the terrorist raids. Their hatred of the enemy was such that I admit that I could not always control them. At Malmédy, there were, no doubt, some excesses.”

Joachim Peiper (1915–1976) SS officer

Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 18, citing La Libre Belgigue in note 61.

Parent, Sister

“Men characterize pornography as something mental because their minds, their thoughts, their dreams, their fantasies, are more real to them than women's bodies or lives; in fact, men have used their social power to characterize a $10-billion-a-year trade in women as fantasy.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Pornography, Men Possessing Women (1979)

Women, Men, Dreams

“I still feel like I'm 15 sometimes and then other times, I'm wanting to feel comfortable in my body and my skin.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

Feeling, Time

“Give me your body and let me love you like I do
Come a little closer and let me do those things to you
This feeling will last forever, baby, that's the truth
Let me be your man so I can love you”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

Let Me for his partner on young people not knowing what to come in the future if it is too faraway into the future
Song lyrics

Love, Truth, Feeling, Baby

“Such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives… What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the student body there will certainly be a revolt.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted by Else Gebel, in letter to Robert Scholl (November, 1946). Original German text. http://www.mythoselser.de/texts/scholl-gebel.htm

Death

“Competition is dangerous, socially offensive, considered right and normal, because you are brought up to that value system. What kind of competition did Jesus have? What kind of competition is there in your body? Suppose your brain said, "I'm the most important organ!" And the liver said, "I am. And I want a Free Enterprise system!"”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

You'd rot away in a month if every organ of your body went out for itself. 1974 Larry King Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVOPkGAtt48

“Just as every vessel is not the same, therefore, enlightenment will also vary according to your patience, heart, mind, and body whenever it comes to endure challenges in life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Heart, Life, Patience

“If you hate, then you have been defeated.
Do not allow anyone to diminish you.
Do not fall down to their level that you allow them to lower yourself enough to hate them.
It is exhausting to hate so much…not to mention toxic.
It has caused a prodigious amount of problems that negatively affect you, however it has never solved anything yet.
Do not squander a second of your time to even allow that person to occupy even a tiny part of your mind at all.
Often we hate that which we fear the most.
Let it flow out of you.
Then see how much lighter you feel in your mind, body and soul.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Soul, Personality, Problem, Hate

“Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals…”

Emma Goldman book Anarchism and Other Essays

Variant: Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.
Source: Anarchism and Other Essays

Religion

“Just as women's bodies are softer than men's, so their understanding is sharper.”

Christine de Pizan (1365–1430) Italian French late medieval author

Women, Men, Understanding

“All the loving acts that two human beings are capable of, the simple act of holding hands can often become the most intimate. Why is this so? Basically, because the nature of the hands and feet is such that the energy system finds expression in these two parts of the body in a very singular way. Two palms coming together have far more intimacy than the contact between any other parts of the body. You can try this with yourself. You don’t even need a partner. When you put your hands together, the two energy dimensions within you (right-left, masculine-feminine, solar-lunar, yin-yang, etc.) are linked in a certain way, and you begin to experience a sense of unity within yourself. This is the logic of the traditional Indian namaskar. It is a means of harmonizing the system. So, the simplest way to experience a state of union is to try this simple namaskar yoga. Put your hands together, and pay loving attention to any object you use or consume, or any form of life that you encounter. When you bring this sense of awareness into every simple act, your experience of life will never be the same again. There is even a possibility that if you put your hands together, you could unite the world!”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Love, Life, World, Way

“Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.”

Annie Ernaux (1940) French writer

Source: Quoted in Melodrama after the tears, ed. Jörg Metelmann and Scott Loren (Amsterdam University Press, 2016), p. 178

Life, People, Intelligence, Universe

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

Quote in Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors (2007) by William Thompson and Kim Sorvig, p. 30
after 1930

Flowers

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Variant: A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
Variant: Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Source: The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, p. 188; also reported in various sources as:
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Friendship, Powerful, For Friend, For Bestfriend

“I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.”

Ptolemy book Almagest

In some of the manuscripts, the books begins with this epigram (Owen Gingerich, The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, American Institute of Physics, 1993, p. 55).
Almagest

Pleasure, Nature

“For no man is free who is a slave to his body.”
Nemo liber est qui corpori servit.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCII: On the Happy Life

“I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too,”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)
Context: I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

Heart

“Tattoos are interesting, but at the same time they are also a mask – you are exhibiting your past life on your body.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Past, Life, Time, Tattoo

“For abundant freedom will be achieved only when the body is destroyed, and the soul is placed first before everything else.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul, Freedom

“To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have- to want and want- how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again!”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Heart

“We’re beings toward death, we’re … two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms.”

Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist

Death

“The kabalists say that a man is not dead when his body is entombed. Death is never sudden; for, according to Hermes, nothing goes in nature by violent transitions. Everything is gradual, and as it required a long and gradual development to produce the living human being, so time is required to completely withdraw vitality from the carcass. "Death can no more be an absolute end, than birth a real beginning. Birth proves the preexistence of the being, as death proves immortality," says the same French kabalist”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

Eliphas Levi
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume I, Chapter XIII

Death, Birth, Nature, Time

“We have Divine Wisdom in the mortal body. Whatever does harm to the body, ruins the House of the Eternal.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

Wisdom, Housing

“All these trod the road to Hell, removing from this house of clay to the pit of perdition. The enemy's country was full, as Hell is full, of wounded who had died on the road. The lowest pit was gorged with miscreants who had surrendered their souls to the lord of Hell. In whatever direction one from the army of Islam hastened, he found everywhere a self-willed one dead; whatever march the illustrious camp made in the wake of the fugitives, it found no foot-space without its prostrate foe. All the Hindus slain, abject and mean, By matchlock-stones, like the Elephants' lords, Many hills of their bodies were seen, And from each hill a fount of running blood.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp/baburnama017152mbp_djvu.Txt

Soul, Hell, Housing, Dead

“As material fortune is associated with the properties of the body, so honor belongs to those of the soul.”

Ptolemy (100–170) Greco-Egyptian writer and astronomer of Alexandria

Book IV, sec. 1
Tetrabiblos

Soul

“To Love is to reach God.
Never will a Lover's chest
feel any sorrow.
Never will a Lover's robe
be touched by mortals.
Never will a Lover's body
be found buried in the earth.
To Love is to reach God.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Hush Don't Say Anything to God (1999)

Love, God, Feeling, Lovers

“The reason I sell 6 million records, the reason I could go to jail and come out without a scratch, the reason I can walk around, the reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly in to my face and find my soul, it's there, it's not sold, i didn't sell it, it's still within me, I still feel it, my heart is still connected to my body.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Interview on the set of Gang Related (1996)

Feeling, Soul, Heart

“Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“Why do they always show Christ up there bleeding and dying on the cross? We don't remember John Lennon lying there with a bullet hole in his head. I'm against the arbitrary organization of 'God' as a concept. We should all experience it all individually and purely. I don't agree with the separation of God and the body, I don't believe that we aren't a part of 'it', I don't agree that it's a man. In most religions there's no place for women. There aren't any women in the Holy Trinity and I need that. I love women, I came from a woman.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

B-Side Magazine, October/November 1994
From Interviews

Love, Women, God, Religion

“The Head and the body are Christ wholly and entirely.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

The Head is the only begotten Son of God, the body is His Church; the bridegroom and the bride, two in one flesh. All who dissent from the Scriptures concerning Christ, although they may be found in all places in which the Church is found, are not in the Church; and again all those who agree with the Scriptures concerning the Head, and do not communicate in the unity of the Church, are not in the Church Encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII on the Unity of the Church, June 29, 1896, ch. 16, Publications of the Catholic Truth Society, 1896, London, Volume 30, p. 41. http://books.google.com/books?id=pYcQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41&dq=%22Head+and+the+body+are+Christ+wholly+and+entirely%22&hl=en&ei=6JVRToOwCYbKsQKKxvTHBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Head%20and%20the%20body%20are%20Christ%20wholly%20and%20entirely%22&f=false Alternate translation: The whole Christ is Head and Body. The Head, the only begotten Son of God; and His Body, the Church: the Bridegroom and the Bride, two in one flesh. Whosoever dissent from the Holy Scriptures in respect of the Head, even though they be found in all the places in which the Church is marked out to be, are not in the Church. And again, whosoever agree with the Holy Scriptures concerning the Head, and do not communicate with the unity of the Body, are not in the Church, because they dissent from Christ's own witness concerning Christ's Body, which is the Church. Dr. Pusey, and the Ancient Church (1866), by Thomas W. Allies, Longmans, Green, London, p. 82 http://books.google.com/books?id=Cn-pxLKAcRIC&pg=PA82&dq=%22whole+Christ+is+Head+and+Body.+The+Head,+the+only-begotten+Son+of+God%22&hl=en&ei=gZZRTpHKDqmusQKQ8cnnBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22whole%20Christ%20is%20Head%20and%20Body.%20The%20Head%2C%20the%20only-begotten%20Son%20of%20God%22&f=false De Unitate Ecclesiae - On the Unity of the Church (c. 401 – 405)

Christ

“The best curve on a woman's body is her smile. ”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Smile

“If exposure of body is modernism, then animals are more modern than humans.”

Zakir Naik (1965) Islamic televangelist

Zakir Naik https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7133146.Zakir_Naik

Animals

“In India, people burn themselves when the soul leaves the body, at the same time they wish to reincarnate into something else while destroying the body part.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul, Time, People, Parting

“The brain is full of thoughts. The body is useless without the presence of the mind.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Variant: How we need that security. How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this. I need someone to pour myself into.
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Soul, Confidence

“Be Prepared in Mind by having disciplined yourself to be obedient to every order, and also by having thought out beforehand any accident or situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it.

Be Prepared in Body by making yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Source: Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship

Strong

“True human capabilities will not find expression in competition. True human capabilities will find expression only in absolute relaxation. Your mind, your body will work best, will find fullest expression, only when you are joyful and peaceful, and quiet within yourself.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Inspire Your Child Inspire the World: In the Presence of the Master

Peace

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Dream Work (1986)
Source: "Wild Geese"

Beauty, Love, Animals

“What is the heart but a spring, and the nerves but so many strings, and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body?”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

Spring, Heart

“Let the inner god that is in each one of us speak. The temple is your body, and the priest is your heart: it is from here that every awareness must begin.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

God, Heart

“Certein bodies… become luminous when heated. Their luminosity disappears after some time, but the capacity of becoming luminous afresh through heat is restored to them by the action of a spark, and also by the action of radium.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

Time

“Perhaps I am no one.
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Question, Flying

“The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God. In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It was the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. And Christians must share in this law.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

Men, God, Law, Suffering

“Mind is not in any one place. Every cell in this body has its own intelligence. The brain is sitting in your head, but mind is all over the place.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Mind is your Business

Intelligence

“A body of men, holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by any body.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Men

“Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

World

“Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone,
I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.
I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Life

“As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you and never will”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

“I am often asked why men don’t get as worked up as they might about women—particularly poor women—having to use their bodies as prostitutes. Because most men unconsciously experience themselves as prostitutes every day—the miner, the firefighter, the construction worker, the logger, the soldier, the meatpacker—these men are prostitutes in the direct sense: they sacrifice their bodies for money and for their families.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 233.

Women, Men, Money, Family

“One day, to pass the time away, we read
of Lancelot—how love had overcome him.
We were alone, and we suspected nothing.
And time and time again that reading led
our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
and yet one point alone defeated us.
When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by one who was so true a lover,
this one, who never shall be parted from me,
while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.
A Gallehault indeed, that book and he
who wrote it, too; that day we read no more.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 127–138 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Love, Books, Smile, Lovers

“Theres no short cut. It’s hard work being a Body builder. If you’re not willing to do the hard work, then it’s the wrong sport for you. You’ve got to love it. If you love it, you will get to where you want to be.”

Rich Piana (1970–2017) American bodybuilder and internet personality

Love, Sport

“The Virgin Mary remains in the middle between Christ and humankind. For in the very moment he was conceived and lived, he was full of grace. All other human beings are without grace, both in the first and second conception. But the Virgin Mary, though without grace in the first conception, was full of grace in the second … whereas other human beings are conceived in sin, in soul as well as in body, and Christ was conceived without sin in soul as well as in body, the Virgin Mary was conceived in body without grace but in soul full of grace.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

As quoted in Anderson, H. George; Stafford, J. Francis; Burgess, Joseph A., eds. (1992). The One Mediator, The Saints, and Mary. Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue. VIII. Minneapolis: Augsburg. ISBN 0-8066-2579-1., p. 236

Soul, Christ

“The things that change are not our real life. Within us there is another body, another beauty. It belongs to that ray of light which never changes. We must discover how to mingle with it and become one with that unchanging thing. We must realize and understand this treasure of truth. That is why we have come to the world.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Life, Truth, World, Beauty

“The dunyâ distracts and preoccupies the heart and body, but al-zuhd (asceticism, not giving importance to worldly things) gives rest to the heart and body. Verily, Allâh will ask us about the halâl things we enjoyed, so what about the harâm!”

Hasan al-Basri (642–728) Iranian Sufi Saint

Quoted in Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Zuhd Al-Kabîr

Heart

“One ought to fast, watch, and labor to the extent that such activities are needed to harness the body’s desires and longings; however, those who presume that they are justified by works pay no attention to the need for self-discipline but see the works themselves as the way to righteousness. They believe that if they do a great number of impressive works all will be well and righteousness will be the result. Sometimes this is pursued with such zeal that they become mentally unstable and their bodies are sapped of all strength. Such disastrous consequences demonstrate that the belief that we are justified and saved by works without faith is extremely foolish.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 73

Faith, Way

“Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself.”

Susanna Wesley (1669–1742) Mother of Methodism

Letter to John Wesley, June 8, 1725

God, Sense

“I wish sometimes that I had twenty bodies, that at twenty places at once I might publish the saving name of Jesus.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Two: Over the Treaty Wall. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982, 362).

“Trust nobody, TRUST NO BODY.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Prison interviews and interrogations (1995)

“Every morning
I wake up with the news
of bloodshed.
I feel my body,
desperate to know whether
I’m still alive.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

Every Morning http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/every-morning-7/ From Poetry

Feeling

“God the Father is a person separate from the Holy Ghost. Totally separate. …Do you know that the Holy Spirit has a soul and a body separate from that of Jesus and the Father? …God the Father then is a triune being within Himself. He's a person, He has a soul. …A soul is an intellect. …God thinks …separate from the Son and separate from the Holy Ghost. …God the Father is a separate individual from the Son and the Holy Ghost, who is a triune being who walks in a spirit body and He has hair…has eyes…has a mouth…has hands.”

Benny Hinn (1952) American-Canadian evangelist

Orlando Christian Centre, October 13 1990

God, Soul, Thinking, Personality

“I still carry the marks on my body of what those "German supermen" did to me then.”

Irena Sendler (1910–2008) Polish resistance fighter and Holocaust rescuer

Referring to Nazi doctrines that German "Aryans" were a "master-race" of "supermen", as quoted in "Holocaust heroine's survival tale" by Adam Easton in BBC News (3 March 2005)
Context: I still carry the marks on my body of what those "German supermen" did to me then. I was sentenced to death.

“When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of its momentum. When the strike of a hawk breaks the body of its prey, it is because of timing.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Source: The Art of War, Chapter V · Forces

Water, Time

“Love is the unity of soul, mind and body. Pay attention to the precedence… ”

Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist

Love, Soul

“The recognition of the law of cause and effect, also known as karma, is a fundamental key to understand how you’ve created your world, with actions of your body, speech, and mind. When you truly understand karma, then you realize you are responsible for everything in your life. It is incredibly empowering to know that your future is in your hands.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Understanding, Law, Future, World

“Never discredit your gut instinct. You are not paranoid. Your body can pick up on bad vibrations. If something deep inside of you says something is not right about a person or situation, trust it.”

Ralph Smart

Personality, Bad luck

“Spiritual awakening is not a special feeling, state, or experience. It is not a goal or destination, somewhere to reach in the future. As the Buddha was trying to tell us (though few actually listened), it is not a superhuman achievement or attainment. You don’t have to travel to India to find it. It is not a special state of perfection reserved for the lucky or the privileged few. It is not an exclusive club. It is not an out-of-body experience, and it does not involve living in a cave, shutting off all your beautiful senses, detaching yourself from the realities of this modern world. It cannot be transmitted to you by a fancy bearded (or non-bearded) guru, nor can it be taken away or lost. You do not have to become anyone’s disciple or follower, or give away all your possessions. You do not have to join a cult. You do not have to follow anyone.

Rather, is a constant and ancient invitation – throughout every moment of your life – to trust and embrace yourself exactly as you are, in all your glorious imperfection. It is about being fully present and awake to each precious moment, coming out of the epic movie of past and future (“The Story of Me”) and showing up for life, knowing that even your feelings of non-acceptance are accepted here. It is about radically opening up to this extraordinary gift of existence, embracing both the pain and the joy of it, the bliss and the sorrow, the ecstasy and the overwhelm, the certainty and the doubt. Knowing that you are never separate from the Whole, never broken, never truly lost.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/shockingly-simple-principles-of-spiritual-awakening/

“Please, don't talk to me about 'Pure Awareness' or 'Dwelling in the Absolute'.
I want to see how you treat your partner,
your kids, your parents, your precious body.
Please, don't lecture me about 'the illusion of the separate self' or how you achieved permanent bliss in just 7 days.
I want to feel a genuine warmth radiating from your heart.
I want to hear how well you listen,
take in information that doesn't fit your personal philosophy.
I want to see how you deal with people who disagree with you.
Don't tell me how awakened you are, how free you are from ego.
I want to know you beneath the words.
I want to know what you're like when troubles befall you.
If you can fully allow your pain and not pretend to be invulnerable.
If you can feel your anger yet not step into violence.
If you can grant safe passage to your sorrow yet not be its slave.
If you can feel your shame and not shame others:
If you can fuck up, and admit it.
If you can say 'sorry', and really mean it.
If you can be fully human in your glorious divinity.
Don't talk to me about your spirituality, friend.
I'm really not that interested.
I only want to meet YOU.
Know your precious heart.
Know the beautiful human struggling for the light.
Before 'the spiritual one'.
Before all the clever words.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.facebook.com/LifeWithoutACentre/posts/1523252961105640

“The only difference between the spiritual and physical world lies in having the bodies, but the souls are common in all beings.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul, World

“Don't keep secrets in your body and soul.
They quietly destroy you.
Silence must be heard!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Soul, Secret, Silence

“…the Moon is there, up above, still, shining, hiding every wound that time has marked her body.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

Time

“You don't understand music: you hear it. So hear me with your whole body.”

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) Brazilian writer

Source: The Stream of Life

Music, Understanding

“If I had a soul I sold it
for pretty words
If I had a body I used
it up spurting my essence

Allen Ginsberg warns you
dont follow my path
to extinction”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Soul

“Visible and mobile, my body is a thing among things; it's caught in the fabric of the world, and its cohesion is that of a thing. But, because it moves itself and sees, it holds things in a circle around itself.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) French phenomenological philosopher

World

“Am I in the picture? Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing on the corner…?”

Francesca Woodman (1958–1981) American photographer

Girl, Animals, Dead

“He thought with a kind of astonishment of the biological uselessness of pain and fear, the treachery of the human body which always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment when a special effort is needed.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Pain, Fear, Effort

“Suffering is not increased by numbers. One body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Source: The Quiet American

World, Feeling, Suffering

“Any violation of a woman's body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 7
Context: But the hatred of women is a source of sexual pleasure for men in its own right. Intercourse appears to be the expression of that contempt in pure form, in the form of a sexed hierarchy; it requires no passion or heart because it is power without invention articulating the arrogance of those who do the fucking. Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women; but that contempt can turn gothic and express itself in many sexual and sadistic practices that eschew intercourse per se. Any violation of a woman's body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography.

Men, Truth, Sex

“The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish (1977)
Context: The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection much more profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence... the soul is the effect and instrument of political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.
Context: But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not that a real man, the object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technological intervention, has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of theologians. The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection more profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.

Soul

“In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Fight

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow what a ride!”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Variant: Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!
Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

Life

“We'll stop it, even if my body crumbles to bits I'll stop it with my soul!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Soul

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Attributed to Cicero in J. M. Braude's Speaker's Desk Book of Quips, Quotes, & Anecdotes (Jaico Pub. House, 1966), p. 52. Dennis McHenry in a 2011 post at theCAMPVS.com http://thecampvs.com/2011/08/03/cicero-on-books-and-the-soul/ identified a source for the exact form of words in the essay "On the Pleasure of Reading" http://books.google.com/books?id=0YfQAAAAMAAJ&dq=cicero%20%22room%20without%20books%22%20%2B%22contemporary%20review%22&pg=PA240#v=onepage&q&f=false by Sir John Lubbock, published in The Contemporary Review, vol. 49 (1886) https://archive.org/details/contemporaryrev55unkngoog, pp. 240–51 https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev55unkngoog#page/n250/mode/2up, in which Lubbock wrote that "Cicero described a room without books as a body without a soul" (p. 241). The same sentence may also be found on p. 61 https://archive.org/stream/thepleasuresofli01lubbuoft#page/60/mode/2up of Lubbock's collection The Pleasures of Life. Part I. 18th edition (London and New York : Macmillan and Co. 1890) https://archive.org/details/thepleasuresofli01lubbuoft, in a lecture titled "A Song of Books". McHenry suggested that Lubbock may have had in mind the words "postea vero quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit mens addita videtur meis aedibus" at Cicero, Ad Atticum 4.8, which are translated by E. O. Winstedt on p. 293 https://archive.org/stream/letterstoatticus01ciceuoft#page/292/mode/2up of Cicero: Letters to Atticus I (London : William Heinemann, and New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons 1912) https://archive.org/details/letterstoatticus01ciceuoft "Since Tyrannio has arranged my books, the house seems to have acquired a soul", and by Evelyn Shuckburgh on p. 234 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924012541433#page/n283/mode/2up of The Letters of Cicero. Vol. I. B. C. 68–52 (London : George Bell and Sons 1908) https://archive.org/details/cu31924012541433 "Moreover, since Tyrannio has arranged my books for me, my house seems to have had a soul added to it" (although the Latin word " mens http://athirdway.com/glossa/?s=mens", rendered "soul" by both Winstedt and Shuckburgh, is more usually translated by the English "mind"). D. R. Shackleton Bailey in Cicero's Letters to Atticus (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books 1978), p. 162, translated "And now that Tyrannio has put my books straight, my house seems to have woken to life". Disputed Variant: Ut conclave sine libris ita corpus sine anima" A room without books is like a body without a soul

Success, Wise, Deep, Inspirational