To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1949Quotes
There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.
—Karl Marx, 1860I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.
—Elizabeth I, 1588All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.
—Fran Lebowitz, 1978Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
—Oscar Wilde, 1890Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.
—Kate Moss, 2009The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body.
—Anaïs Nin, 1935Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.
—Tom Stoppard, 1993Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1920What are men anyway but balloons on legs, a lot of blown-up bladders?
—Gaius Petronius Arbiter, c. 64And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
—Walt Whitman, 1855Very shy people don’t even want to take up the space that their body actually takes up.
—Andy Warhol, 1975My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.
—W.H. Auden, c. 1967