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Quotations about the Body
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I had fast in my heart's keeping the new truth that in the body, and the instincts of the body, there should be no shame but rather a frank, joyous pride. ~Arnold Bennett (1867–1931)
The integrity of the organism is indispensable to the manifestations of consciousness. Man thinks, invents, loves, suffers, admires, and prays with his brain and all his organs. ~Alexis Carrel, Man the Unknown, 1935
The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live. ~Jim Rohn
Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense. ~Henry Miller
Every man is the builder of a Temple called his body, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. ~Henry David Thoreau
There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person. ~Rumer Godden, A House with Four Rooms
Blood is that fragile scarlet tree we carry within us. ~Osbert Sitwell
The word arse is as much god as the word face. It must be so, otherwise you cut off your god at the waist. ~D.H. Lawrence
To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. ~Buddha
Let nothing divert you from your duty to your body. ~Mose Velsor (Walt Whitman), "Manly Health and Training," New York Atlas, 1858 September 12th
The heart's regulation of the pulse fashions the body into a musical microcosm keeping time with the rhythms of the universe... ~Bruce W. Holsinger, Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer, 2001
Why should a man's mind have been thrown into such close, sad, sensational, inexplicable relations with such a precarious object as his body? ~Thomas Hardy
Spirit and flesh would have a hard time untangling if they were put to it. ~Henry Stanley Haskins, "New England's Accents," Meditations in Wall Street, 1940
How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle? ~Katherine Mansfield, Bliss and Other Stories
The human body is a machine which winds its own springs. ~Julien Offroy de la Mettrie, L'Homme Machine
Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body. ~Irene Claremont de Castillejo
Man is the sole animal whose nudity offends his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind. ~Montaigne
The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in. ~B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga: The Path To Holistic Health
He felt it, he said, an honor to wash his face, being, as it was, the temple of the Spirit. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838 journal, about Jones Very
'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.
~William Shakespeare, Othello
Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs. ~Aldous Huxley
The body never lies. ~Martha Graham
Our bodies are apt to be our autobiographies. ~Frank Gillette Burgess
What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera. ~Aldous Huxley
The body is but a pair of pincers set over a bellows and a stew pan and the whole fixed upon stilts. ~Samuel Butler, Notebooks
The body too has its rights; and it will have them: they cannot be trampled on without peril. The body ought to be the soul's best friend. Many good men however have neglected to make it such: so it has become a fiend and has plagued them. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
If we neglect the body the body will have its revenge. ~Boston Courier editor, quoted in Friends' Intelligencer, 1858 January 2nd [Based on my research thus far, I think the author is either George Lunt or George Stillman Hillard.
If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong. ~Thomas Jefferson
Hormones, vitamines, stimulants and depressives are oils upon the creaky machinery of life. Principal item, however, is the machinery. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Make your feet your friend. ~J.M. Barrie
There is a wisdom in the body that is older and more reliable than clocks and calendars. ~John Harold Johnson
When I regard anything first as body and then as spirit, it produces a tremendous parallax. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
A trembling in the bones may carry a more convincing testimony than the dry documented deductions of the brain. ~Llewelyn Powers
Feelin' it in your bones, that's a very facetious doctrine, an' ain't no more to be depended upon than my flour sieve for an umbrella. I wrote a poem on it, like this:
Trust 'em not, them fickle bones,
Always talkin' moans an' groans.
Jest as if inside of you,
Lived a thing could tell you true,
Whether it was goin' to rain,
Whether you would have a pain,
Whether him or you would beat,
Whether you'd have 'nuf to eat!
Bones was give to hold us straight,
Not to tell us 'bout our Fate.
~Eleanor H. Porter, "The Worry of It," Dawn, 1918 [a little altered
The trouble with having a body is that people know it's where you hang out and you don't get any privacy. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
There is but one temple in this Universe: The Body. We speak to God whenever we lay our hands upon it. ~Thomas Carlyle
Your body is a flower that life let bloom.... ~Ilchi Lee
Your body is a beautiful manifestation powered by spirit. ~Mike Dolan, @HawaiianLife
DEAR reader, man admits with acclamation that he is the epitome of anthropological acumen and biological brilliance—in fact the biggest and brownest bun produced by cosmic cookery; and certainly, when one considers the multifariousness of his mundane mechanism, he seems compact and complete; apparently nothing has been omitted from his body-work which might have been added with advantage, and nothing has been added which might have been subtracted. He sports no decorative doo-dahs, futile fizz-gigs, or exotic extras, and in fact, is a euphony of utility. ~Kenneth Alfred Evelyn Alexander (c.1890–1953), "More Madness and Fuddled Philosophy: The Works of Man," in The New Zealand Railways Magazine, 1930 June 1st
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
It's your body. Tell it what to do. ~Chris Powell
If the mind, that rules the body, ever so far forgets itself as to trample on its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite the oppressor. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Flesh goes on pleasuring us, and humiliating us, right to the end. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966,
Our feet are our body's connection to the earth. ~Andrew Weil
Be strong then, and enter into your own body; there you have a solid place for your feet. ~Kabir
Sometimes your body is smarter than you are. ~Author Unknown
[T]he way he treats his body, you’d think he was renting. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
If you don't take care of your body, where will you live? ~Author Unknown
With regard to the body, there are certainly as many imaginary invalids as actual, if indeed not more... ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
What the mind has forgotten, the body remembers long after. ~Lilias Folan
The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body. ~Anaïs Nin
Yet this is health: To have a body functioning so perfectly that when its few simple needs are met it never calls attention to its own existence. ~Bertha Stuart Dyment
A woman is as young as her knees. ~Mary Quant
'Tis better than riches
To scratch when it itches.
~Author Unknown
It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body. ~Marcel Proust
The body is not a permanent dwelling, but a sort of inn which is to be left behind when one perceives that one is a burden to the host. ~Seneca
The fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the process of life. ~Franz Alexander
Our body is a machine for living. It is geared towards it; it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself; it will be more effective than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. ~Leo Tolstoy
You know the Model of your Car.
You know just what its powers are.
You treat it with a deal of care,
Nor tax it more than it will bear.
But as to self — that's different.
Your mechanism may be bent,
Your carbureter gone to grass,
Your engine just a rusty mass.
Your wheels may wobble and your cogs
Be handed over to the dogs,
And on you skip, and skid, and slide,
Without a thought of things inside.
What fools indeed we mortals are
To lavish care upon a Car,
With ne'er a bit of time to see
About our own machinery!
~John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), "Motors" (September Eighteenth), The Cheery Way: A Bit of Verse For Every Day, 1920
Sweat your prayers, dance your pain, and move on. ~Gabrielle Roth
Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other. ~Henry David Thoreau
Many people serve their bodies as rented houses are used. The plaster begins to fall, the weather draws out the nails, and the clapboards spring off. "No matter—we won't have to stay here long." It will matter, though, if, through your neglect to mend the roof or the windows, you get a rheumatism that will hound you to the grave, filling your old years with misery.... I believe much of the muscular decay of old age comes from inactivity. At sixty the man sees the folly of his early ambitions, and lays them aside. He has a competence now, so he hands his business over to his sons. Thus the stimulus to exertion is gone. This relaxation of effort would have been bad at twenty-five. It is disastrous at sixty-five. No unused muscle can hold its vigor. ~Mrs. J.F. Willing, "Growing Old," in The Ladies' Repository, July 1867
The human body is the only machine for which there are no spare parts. ~Hermann M. Biggs
There's more to our bodies than a sack of bones and flesh. ~Dr. Joe Dispenza, You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter, 2014
The lungs have been usually regarded as the great fire-place of the human system; but whether or not this is so, the stronger the lungs are the better, without a doubt. ~William Andrus Alcott (1798–1859), The Physiology of Marriage, 1855 [On original publication, author was cited simply as "An Old Physician."
In vain we shall penetrate more and more deeply the secrets of the structure of the human body, we shall not dupe nature; we shall die as usual. ~Bernard Le Bovier de Fontanelle
Skin symptoms like other symptoms are often well-intentioned but doomed attempts to make our lives better.... They are doomed because we're trying to use our skin to do things the skin is not designed for. I tell my patients, "try to feel your emotions in your heart, not in your skin." ~Ted A. Grossbart
The body is a bundle of careful compromises. ~Randolph Nesse and George Williams, Why We Get Sick
The dumbest kidney is smarter than the smartest nephrologist. ~Unknown physician
Massage is the only form of physical pleasure to which nature forgot to attach consequences. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Ah me! the red is yet upon my cheek,
And in my veins life's vigorous currents play...
~Elizabeth Chase Akers Allen (1832–1911), "Consolation," c.1866
Our veins are rivers of the body, navigated by angels, who call at various nerve stations. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
Beyond my body my veins are invisible. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
Varicose veins are the result of an improper selection of grandparents. ~William Osler
I have my rhythm like the tides and the seasons, I have my fitness. God did not give a law unto the planets, unto the ebb and flow of seas, and leave me out. ~Muriel Strode (1875–1964), "Songs of Longing: XIX," At the Roots of Grasses, 1923
Before maps, we had elevation. We used mind instead of paper, and the contours of the land were recorded in our bodies. A knoll, a mountaintop, any high point would do. The earth unfolded before us. ~Craig Childs, "Land Bridge," Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America, 2018
I began by being perplexed about my body; and I ended by being anxious about my soul. In short, I wished to know what I was. ~Adolphe Monod, "Introduction. Letter I: Lucilla to the Abbe Favien," Lucilla; or, The Reading of the Bible, translated from the French by an unnamed translator, 1842
My soul-bird loves my body-cage
Only when it is kept fit,
Pure and absolutely immaculate.
~Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames
The stronger the body, the more it obeys; the weaker the body, the more it commands. ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
Attention to the human body brings healing and regeneration. Through awareness of the body we remember who we really are. ~Jack Kornfield
Most guys aren't that picky. They may have quicker reflexes around large breasts, but they need more to keep them interested. We know plenty of women whose sex appeal makes their breasts exactly the right size. ~From "The Playboy Advisor," Playboy magazine, March 2004, in answer to the question, "If you have small breasts, how do you make yourself look sexy? Most guys want girls with large breasts."
The body is a sacred garment. ~Martha Graham
Your cells are as depressed as you are, and your cells are as happy and frisky as you are. ~Abraham–Hicks
Many people can listen to their cat more intelligently than they can listen to their own despised body. Because they attend to their pet in a cherishing way, it returns their love. Their body, however, may have to let out an earth-shattering scream in order to be heard at all. ~Marion Woodman
I love the body. Flesh is so honest, and organs do not lie. ~Terri Guillemets, "Symptoms, waiting for signs," 2001
[T]he body will not, or cannot, lie about emotions. ~Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach, 2007
Don't worry too much about your heart, as so many healthy people seem to be doing nowadays; rejoice, rather, that Nature has placed in your breast one of her most delicate yet durable marvels, an organ of surpassing patience, flexibility and strength. ~Henry Morton Robinson, "The Heart—Wondrous and Courageous Organ," Reader's Digest, February 1948
I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me. ~Herman Hesse
Blood... 'tis the ink of lovers. ~George Chapman (c.1559–1634), Bussy D'Ambois: A Tragedie, c.1603, quoted from the 1646 printing, Actus Quinti, Scena Prima [A little altered — D'Ambois: "What? writ in bloud?" Mont∫urry: "I, 'tis the ink of lovers."
Abdicate, v.: to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. ~Author Unknown
I injured three fingers, both thumbs and both lips,
My shinbone, my backbone, my wishbone and hips!...
~Dr. Seuss, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, 1965
A person who doesn't breathe deeply reduces the life of his body. If he doesn't move freely, he restricts the life of his body. If he doesn't feel fully, he narrows the life of his body. And if his self-expression is constricted, he limits the life of his body. ~Alexander Lowen
Destroy the roots of the healthiest plants, their heads will droop and die. Many excellent qualities of the mind have their roots, in fact, in the body: their summits, which adorn the spiritual being, the mind, will wither, if we neglect the soil of these valuable plants... ~C.G. Salzmann, Gymnastics for Youth: or, A Practical Guide to Healthful and Amusing Exercises for the Use of Schools. An Essay Toward the Necessary Improvement of Education, Chiefly as It Relates to the Body, 1793, translated from the German, 1799 [Translator name not provided in publication.
The essence of education is the education of the body. ~The Earl of Beaconsfield (Benjamin Disraeli, 1804–1881), Lothair
But one thing, at least, is certain, that no system can be satisfactory, much less successful, which does not provide for the healthy training of the whole being of the child, dividing and distinguishing mental and bodily exercise if it will, but at the same time co-ordinating them in due relations to each other... ~E. Warre, 1884
Skin is a covering for our immortality. ~Terri Guillemets
I am beautiful as I am. I am the shape that was gifted. My breasts are no longer perky and upright like when I was a teenager. My hips are wider than that of a fashion model's. For this I am glad, for these are the signs of a life lived. ~Cindy Olsen, co-owner of The Body Objective website, 1999
The beauty of my body is not measured by the size of the clothes it can fit into, but by the stories that it tells. I have a belly and hips that say, "We grew a child in here," and breasts that say, "We nourished life." My hands, with bitten nails and a writer's callus, say, "We create amazing things." ~Sarah, from I Am Beautiful
Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos—the trees, the clouds, everything. ~Thích Nhất Hạnh
It's all in the mind and a bit in the heart but it goes in the body and that's where all the trouble comes in. ~Terri Guillemets
Those X-rays desecrate your bones! ~Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts, 1964 [Lucy to Charlie
The body and the mind are meant to be woven together: thought into emotion into sensation into senses into flesh. But for most of my life I have been rootless, unmoored, a ghost. All thought, no physicality. I have been a person made of artistic sensibility and grief. I have imagined that my mind is paramount, my body secondary — the former an intricate instrument, the latter only a vehicle. My flesh has not factored into my identity. ~Abby Geni, The Lightkeepers, 2016
He was still a young man. He had blood in his cheeks, and bright eyes. He had a good beard on his face: good, healthy hair, well fed with blood. He had a fine layer of flesh on his bones — the firm flesh of a man matured by forty years of life. His hands were strong. The strength flowed like oil right to his finger-tips. ~Jean Giono (1895–1970), Regain, 1930, translated from the French by Henri Fluchè and Geoffrey Myers, Harvest, 1939
Man, it is true, does not go on all fours, but he goes with all fours. Nobody can run quickly without moving his hands in much the same way as he moves his legs. Many people fling their arms about in walking, not from imitation, but by nature. It appears that what moves the feet must at the same time move the hands. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
The brain forgets much, but the lower back remembers everything. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
We use our brains very little, and when we do, it is only to make excuses for our reflexes and our instincts — only to make our acts appear more studied. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Most of us have become deaf to our own bodies, which is why we are out of tune. ~Terri Guillemets
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar, and is shocked by the unexpected: the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition. ~W.H. Auden, The Dyer's Hand
Once admitted that human nature resembles a machine, I may ask: What will become of the machine which is not frequently oiled, which in its working daily accumulates much dust and dirt and is never thoroughly cleansed? Will it not one day, perhaps when in full activity, suddenly stop or collapse and refuse further service? So it will happen to many who do not keep up the needful bodily activity.... And when any part of the body loses its vitality, disorganisation of the system sets in, spreading more every day, until at last the whole body becomes incapable of sustaining life. ~Sebastian Kneipp, Thus Shalt Thou Live: Hints and Advice for the Healthy and the Sick on a Simple and Rational Mode of Life and a Natural Method of Cure, 1889, translated from the 19th German edition
What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful that the garment with which it is clothed? ~Michelangelo
Most psychologists treat the mind as disembodied, a phenomenon with little or no connection to the physical body. Conversely physicians treat the body with no regard to the mind or the emotions. But the body and mind are not separate, and we cannot treat one without the other. ~Candace Pert
Exercise, play, move.
Stretch, feel, reach, sweat.
Skip, dance, hug!
Use the body God gave you,
don't let it rot.
~Terri Guillemets
Let the body receive an injury less than mortal, and what follows? Before the swiftest foot can bring the physician, Nature has begun her healing work. The physician is at best only her humble assistant. Medical science is learning more and more to trust to the vis medicatrix Naturæ—the healing power of Nature. It is she, whom we call stern and merciless, that knits together the broken bone that no artificer on earth could mend. It is she that deftly works out of the system the injurious matter which we in our ignorance have forced upon it. She is not only kind when we obey her: she repairs our mistakes and heals the hurts we have done ourselves. Is not this the very counterpart of what the Divine Physician does for our spirits? ~George S. Merriam
Few of us have lost our minds, but most of us have long ago lost our bodies. ~Ken Wilbur
Mindfulness of the body is awareness of... the taste and smell of this moment. ~Steve Hagen
Why throw trash into the treasure-house of your body? ~Terri Guillemets, "Junk food curse," 2007
The teeth are renewed at the 7th year.
Puberty arrives at twice seven — 14.
Full stature at three times seven — 21.
The perfection of growth at four times seven — 28.
The greatest vigour of body and mind at five times seven — 35.
The commencement of partial decay at six times seven — 42.
General decay and decrease of energy, at seven times seven — 49.
Arrival of old age at eight times seven — 56.
And the grand climacteric of the ancients at nine times seven — 63.
~Thomas Jameson, M.D., "Coincidence of the epochs with the changes of the body," Essays on the Changes of the Human Body, at its Different Ages; the Diseases to Which It is Predisposed in Each Period of Life; and the Physiological Principles of Its Longevity, 1811 [Note: Formatting has been changed for ease of reading, as well as a few words added or slightly restated, but ages and principles remain intact. Jameson referred to this coincidence with the number seven relating to the body as "the septennial evolutions of the machine" and his observations were based on long-time London dwellers. However, the doctrine of septenniads, or septennial phases of life, is actually a much older concept (Hippocrates and earlier) — this is simply the best version I've found for quoting, thus far. Format source: "The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life," The Medical Adviser, and Guide to Health and Long Life, edited by Alex. Burnett, M.D., 1824 July 24th
I'm emotions and bones held together by skin and reality. ~Terri Guillemets
If we were meant to be nude, we would have been born that way. ~Author unknown
With some whose nerves have a deep covering of fat, happiness is less of a problem than it is an accident of anatomy. ~Henry Stanley Haskins, "Happiness," Meditations in Wall Street, 1940
I use the word "fat." I use that word because that's what people are: they're fat. They're not bulky; they're not large, chunky, hefty or plump. And they're not big-boned. Dinosaurs were big-boned. These people are not overweight: this term somehow implies there is some correct weight. There is no correct weight. Heavy is also a misleading term. An aircraft carrier is heavy; it's not fat. Only people are fat, and that's what fat people are! They're fat! ~George Carlin
...of enormous rotundity of paunch... ~A New Edition of the Old Joe Miller; or, Universal Jester: Being a Collection of Wit and Humour, Calculated at Once to Banish Care and Inspire Mirth and Delight1810
So long as we are in conflict with our body, we cannot find peace of mind. ~Georg Feuerstein
Our biochemistry bolts and revolts at our modern life. ~Terri Guillemets
No Senses stronger than his brain can bear.
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly:
What the advantage, if his finer eyes
Study a Mite, not comprehend the Skies?...
Or quick Effluvia darting thro' his brain,
Die of a Rose, in Aromatic pain?
If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the Spheres...
Who finds not Providence all-good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?
~Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Each dosha recognizes a particular kind of weather that brings it out.... The reason a dosha can affect you out of season... is that there is a delay, or a spillover effect.... The principle at work here is the same as with a morning hangover: It takes a while for your body to process a mistake and spit it out in the form of a symptom. ~Deepak Chopra, M.D., Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide, 1991
The heart and the gut are siblings. ~Terri Guillemets
The physiologists persuade you that thoughts come from the brain, and talk of its activity, discharges of nervous force, &c. But don't take that as the whole truth. The fact is, the brain is a sort of Æolian instrument of many strings, whereupon several organs play. There are no thoughts in the brain without the whirl of blood through it. The brain in its vast complex receives influences which stir it to action in various regions and manners according to the appetites and passions connected with the several functionary parts of the body, as many winds move upon the vast expanse of the sea. The heart is an agent for eliciting thoughts from the brain but also the stomach and other parts of the body. If any organ is over-active, hypertrophying beyond its just proportions and playing too vigorous a tune on the nervous stringed instrument in the cranium, one must watch the energies of that dominant organ and withdraw from circumstances that rouse its too great activity. ~Pilocereus Senilis (Walter Moxon, 1836–1886), "The Thoughts of the Heart," 1874 November 4th, in Guy's Hospital Gazette [a little altered
Hate and fear can poison the body as surely as any toxic chemicals. ~Joseph Krimsky
A corpulent man strolled in front of us, sweating and drinking soda from a straw. He was fat enough that each step cost him something. ~Abby Geni, The Wildlands, 2018
X-rays amuse God: all the things he can see that a machine can't. ~Terri Guillemets
Most men carry their souls in the medulla. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Any major drugstore has thousands of different products shelved up, aisle after aisle, just to make people fit for each others' company. ~David J. Beard (1947–2016), tweet, 2010 December 12th
That which matters hums within our guts. ~Terri Guillemets, "Inner being," 2008
A proverb there is with the popular seal
(You hear it in various places),
That a man is as old as he happens to feel,
A woman as old as her face is,
But Science, advancing with seven league boots,
Arousing the vulgar from coma,
The truth of the proverb most boldly disputes
If one's arteries show atheroma.
For we need to be told
(So pathologists hold)
That a man is as old
As his arteries.
~Easton Weston, "The True Age of Man," in Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, c.1899
So Shakespeare (or Bacon?) is totally wrong
In talking of Man's Seven Ages,
And Burns is at sea in his topical song
On the fellow who sweats for his wages.
For when a poor beggar is nearing his end,
And with Death and the Devil he wrestles,
His looks or his feelings no succour can lend,
But only the state of his vessels.
So now you are told
What pathologists hold,
That a man is as old
As his arteries.
~Easton Weston, "The True Age of Man," in Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, c.1899
Why do we pay for psychotherapy when massages cost half as much? ~Jason Love
No man has imagined what private discourse his members have with surrounding nature, or how much the tenor of that intercourse affects his own health and sickness. While the head goes star-gazing, the legs are not necessarily astronomers, too, but are acquiring independent experience in lower strata of nature. How much do they feel which they do not impart! How much rumor dies between the knees and the ears! Surely instinct was this experience. I am no more a freeman of my members than of universal nature. After all, the body takes care of itself. It eats, drinks, sleeps, digests, grows, dies, and the best economy is to let it alone in all these. ~Henry David Thoreau, Oct. 3, 1840
We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life. ~William Godwin
The ability to move disappears earlier than the ability to hear. Wherefore, beside the comatose and in the operating room, keep your mouth shut. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
People who have chemistry evolve quickly to biology. ~Terri Guillemets
This body, full of faults,
Has yet one great quality:
Whatever it encounters in this temporal life
Depends upon one's actions.
~Siddha Nagarjuna
If there is any true temple, true gurdwara, true mosque or true church, it is our own body. This place God has designed for Himself, and He sits within it. ~Maharaj Charan Singh Ji
Pulse persists with rhythmic instinct. ~Terri Guillemets, "Body sublime," 2006
My body is the one particular portion of the universe which my thoughts can alter. Even imaginary complaints may become real ones. As regards all else in the world my theories are unable to affect the order of things. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
A girl without freckles is like a night without stars. ~Author unknown
You know the definition of the perfectly designed machine.... The perfectly designed machine is one in which all its working parts wear out simultaneously. I am that machine. ~Frederick Alexander Lindemann
Body and flesh —
machinery beyond machine
soul enfolded
heart tick-tock
mind, the slave and master
a break is to break free
not to break down
embracing self
the duty of health
chance and second chances
beauty and mechanics
frailty and primal gears
courage laced with fears
laughter spiked with tears
dancing molecules
galloping years —
~Terri Guillemets, "Machinery beyond machine," 2009
The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze. ~Mark Twain
I am a private person, but I will reveal this about myself: if you start massaging my shoulders, don't expect me to tell you to stop. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Full nakedness! All joyes are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth'd must be,
To taste whole joyes.
~John Donne
Once you're a plus size, you'll always have a plus-size spirit. ~Chantae Alexander, Skin Tight [S1, E6, 2016], post-weight-loss
Your body is a temple but only if you treat it as one. ~Terri Guillemets
A little later he has only one ache but he has not improved in health. His one ache is merely all of his former aches run together. ~George Fitch, "Spring Fever" (Thoughts That Throb), Collier's Weekly, 1914 April 11th
Physicians generally are agreed in comprehending the constitutions of their patients under five types, or diatheses; namely, Sanguine, Nervous, Bilious, Strumous, and Lymphatic. These are the tendencies they are born with. In addition they recognize other tendencies, the result of habit, which are termed cachexiæ. ~J. Harrington Keene, The Mystery of Handwriting, 1896
For male and female alike, the bodies of the other sex are messages signaling what we must do, they are glowing signifiers of our own necessities. ~John Updike
The poor body has had very hard lines. Poets, philosophers and preachers have covered it with ridicule, abuse, and lamentation. Shakespeare calls it a muddy vesture of decay; Plato described it as a jibbing horse; Jeremy Taylor treats it almost as if it were the Devil himself. But if the poor thing had wit enough to speak for itself, it would say, Whence comes envy? Is it not a vice of the mind? Whence pride?— the mind again. Whence ambition?—the mind again. Whence covetousness—robbery—murder? If the mind has not all to do with these, at any rate she has the largest part of the guilt. Why, give the poor body a beefsteak and a glass of beer, and it is content. 'Tis the mind that leads it such a dance after the vain glories of the world, and makes it work all kinds of wickedness in the struggle to gain them. Did Robespierre slay his thousands to please his body? What could his body get by it? No. He wanted to please the fancies of his villainous mind. ~Charles Buxton
If your body's not right, the rest of your day will go all wrong. Take care of yourself. ~Terri Guillemets
Some patients I see are actually draining into their bodies the diseased thoughts of their minds. ~Zacharty Bercovitz
My body is a rainbow. I am filled with colors, light and love! ~Rachel Rose Zoller, My Body Is a Rainbow: A Book about Our Chakras, 2016, www.rachaelrosezoller.com
A human being is an ingenious assembly of portable plumbing. ~Christopher Morley
Body puts us on the brittle line between life and death. ~Terri Guillemets
The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity. ~Maria Montessori
The mind can cook up very subtle syndromes to throw at our bodies. ~Terri Guillemets
The body is sensitive. It registers every thought and feeling. Be tender with it. ~Brendan O'Regan
Be thou not ashamed of lust —
Desire was sealed in primal dust
It mingled with the seas of life
To make the mud we know as love
~Terri Guillemets
We don't stop at our skin. ~Dolores Krieger, Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine
Addiction has a more powerful pull than just about anything else on earth. ~Terri Guillemets
We are so attuned to rhythms, to night and day, to fall, winter, spring and summer, year in and year out; to childhood, maturity, and old age; to the very beat of our hearts. Women, in particular, feel the ebb and flow of vigor every month of their reproductive years. ~The Woman CPA, 1981
The most of life is medullary. That's where we breathe and swallow. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature! — ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once more! Is not nakedness then indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your sophistication, your fear, your respectability that is indecent. There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent. Perhaps indeed he or she to whom the free exhilarating ecstasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and how many thousands there are!) has not really known what purity is — nor what faith or art or health really is. ~Walt Whitman
Skin does not equal sin. ~Author Unknown
Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together. ~Charles Caleb Colton
Why do we alienate ourselves so much from our bodies? It's that big piece of machinery attached to your head. ~Terri Guillemets
First up, there's the throat chop.... Adams apple's like the balls of the throat. If that fails, always go for the groin, that's like the balls of the balls. ~Peter Saji, Lisa McQuillan, & Njeri Brown, `black·ish, "The Dozens" (season 1, episode 15), original airdate 2015 February 25th, Dre to son Andre Johnson, Jr
My entire approach to my body and to fitness in general had been based on the concept of deficit. I thought of aerobics classes and how I had panted my way through movements just to give myself smaller thighs, pumping iron to shape my narrow back, dieting to lower my fat level. I had always approached my body as if it were a problem needing to be solved.... This attitude was not really different from the notion of original sin, forever reaching for an ideal we are constitutionally incapable of attaining. But here I was, truly broken now, weak, emaciated, yet in front of me this teacher was saying that just by the virtue of my being, I was complete. I always had been. The only thing I needed to do was honor that. ~Samantha Dunn, "Brick by Brick"
My body is a bulletin board, transmitting my condition. ~Terri Guillemets
My eyes are south windows, and out of these I command a southern prospect. The eye does the least drudgery of any of the senses. It oftenest escapes to a higher employment. The rest serve and escort and defend it. I attach some superiority, even priority, to this sense. It is the oldest servant in the soul's household; it images what it imagines, it ideates what it idealizes. Through it idolatry crept in, which is a kind of religion. If any joy or grief is to be expressed, the eye is the swift runner that carries the news. Of five castes, it is the Brahmin. It converses with the heavens. How man serves this sense more than any other! When he builds a house, he does not forget to put a window in the wall. We see truth. We are children of light. Our destiny is dark. No other sense has so much to do with the future. ~Henry David Thoreau, Oct. 3, 1840
We have a pharmacy inside us that is absolutely exquisite. It makes the right medicine, for the precise time, for the right target organ—with no side effects. ~Deepak Chopra
The best and most efficient pharmacy is within your own system. ~Robert C. Peale
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