The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
The body of joy is not so big.
—African Proverb
If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. To be awake is to be alive. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Every man is a builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Do not refuse the body what it asks for.
—Mexican Proverb
The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.
—Unknown
The character of a man lies not in his body but in his soul.
—Japanese Proverb
Our body is simply a social structure made of many souls.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The eye is the jewel of the body.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
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 Fontenelle (1657–1757) French Essayist, Polymath, Philosopher
A little body often harbors a great soul.
—Common Proverb
Your soul to God, your body to dust, your property to your relatives, because thus it has been found written.
—Maltese Proverb
A feeble body weakens the mind.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
Better a sick body than an ignorant mind.
—Greek Proverb
The mind is the emperor of the body.
—Chinese Proverb
The body never lies.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
One body cannot perform two services.
—Chinese Proverb
Wisdom is lost in a fat man’s body.
—Japanese Proverb
There is but one temple in the world, and that is the body of man.—Nothing is holier than this high form.—We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body.
—Novalis (1772–1801) German Romantic Poet, Novelist
A healthy soul cannot live in a dry body.
—French Proverb
A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
A bath refreshes the body, tea refreshes the mind.
—Japanese Proverb
Master and servant—both have the same body odor.
—Tibetan Proverb
The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Better to satisfy the body than to tarnish the soul.
—Chinese Proverb
The labor of the body frees us from the pains of the mind, and thus makes the poor happy.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
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