Archive

Quotes

If I had the use of my body I would throw it out of the window.

—Samuel Beckett, 1951

There is only one antidote to mental suffering and that is physical pain.

—Karl Marx, 1860

Very shy people don’t even want to take up the space that their body actually takes up.

—Andy Warhol, 1975

The body says what words cannot.

—Martha Graham, 1985

The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body.

—Anaïs Nin, 1935

I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.

—Elizabeth I, 1588

Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than a diamond.

—Miguel de Cervantes, 1605

My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.

—W.H. Auden, c. 1967

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

—Marcus Aurelius, c. 170

One’s body, hair, and skin are a gift from one’s parents—do not dare to allow them to be harmed.

—Classic of Filial Piety, c. 200 BC

To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul.

—George Eliot, 1872

Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1920

The world is made of the very stuff of the body.

—Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 1961