Flesh Quotes

“People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension. Flesh eating is unprovoked murder.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“When a river of tears and a load of grief keep on flowing from a mountain of broken trust, feelings may relentlessly besiege the stronghold of our flesh. Only a timely adjustment with our mental compass can shore up confidence, resilience; and reliance. ("Taken for a ride")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Chosen

“The flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books.”
― Stéphane Mallarme

“The ego hates losing – even to God.”
― Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“If we care to listen to the secrets of our body and the riddles of our heart, we can balance the surfing flow between the wants of our mind and the needs of the flesh. ("Disruption" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“A dagger wants flesh, her father would say. Find it.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Kiss

“The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.”
― Tanith Lee, Death's Master

“A man never lies with more delicious languor under the influence of a passion than when he has persuaded himself that he shall subdue it to-morrow.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“you dear, sweet, tantalizing phantom--hardly flesh at all; so that when I put my arms round you I almost expect them to pass through you as through air!”
― Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

“Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef.”
― Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

“the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I am not an ape, I am a man. The world has been created by God. Man has been created by God. It is not possible for man to understand God - God understands God. Man is God and therefore understands God. I am God. I am a man. I am good and not a beast. I am an animal with reason. I have flesh, I *am* flesh, I am not descended from flesh. Flesh is created by God. I am God. I am God. I am God.”
― Vaslav Nijinsky, The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky

“My heart is hardy, for I have suffered much on the seas and the battlefield: this will be only something more. But a ravenous belly cannot be hid, damn the thing. It gives a world of trouble to men, makes them fit out fleets of ships and scour the barren sea, to bring misery on their enemies.”
― W.H.D. Rouse, The Odyssey

“The flesh covers the bones, and makes the spirit naked.”
― Anthony Liccione

“I suppose that Willie had his natural quota of ordinary suspicion and caginess, but those things tend to evaporate when what people tell you is what you want to hear.”
― Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men

“I am a beast until I love as God doth love.”
― George MacDonald, The Diary of an Old Soul

“Our flesh is a gift of laughter.”
― Harley King

“Specifically, I cherished a romantic impulse towards death, yet at the same time I
required a strictly classical body as its vehicle; a peculiar sense of destiny made me
believe that the reason why my romantic impulse towards death remained unfulfilled
in reality was the immensely simple fact that I lacked the necessary physical qualifications.
A powerful, tragic frame and sculpturesque muscles were indispensable in
a romantically noble death. Any confrontation between weak, flabby flesh and death
seemed to me absurdly inappropriate. Longing at eighteen for an early demise, I felt
myself unfitted for it. I lacked, in short, the muscles suitable for a dramatic death.
And it deeply offended my romantic pride that it should be this unsuitability that
had permitted me to survive the war.”
― Yukio Mishima, Sun & Steel

“Jerome was a marvelous advocate of chastity: yet hear his confession: “O, how often have I thought myself to be in the midst of the vain delights and pleasures of Rome, even when I was in the wild wilderness.” Again, “I, who for fear of hell had condemned myself to such a prison, thought myself oftentimes to be dancing among young women, when I had no other company, but scorpions and wild beasts. My face was pale with fasting, but my mind was inflamed with desires in my cold body: and although my flesh was half-dead already, yet the flames of fleshly lust, boiled within me, etc.”
― Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians

“Her brow was white and low, her cheek’s pure dye
Like twilight rosy still with the set sun;
Short upper lip—sweet lips! that make us sigh
Ever to have seen such; for she was one
Fit for the model of a statuary
(A race of mere impostors, when all ’s done;
I’ve seen much finer women, ripe and real,
Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal).”
― Lord Byron, Don Juan

“La carne sedentaria, ya lo he dicho en otra ocasión, es el autentico pecado contra el espíritu santo”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“Meanwhile the antelope was butchered, and the flesh was found to be crawling with maggoty parasites. Cookie announced he had eaten worse, but they decided on a meal of biscuits and beans instead. Johnson recorded that "I am already thoroughly sick of beans, with six more weeks of them still before me." But it was not all bad.”
― Michael Crichton, Dragon Teeth

“Where CBT adjusts the mind's dialogue, Reich's legacy demands we listen to the flesh.”
― Laurence Galian, Crossing the Forbidden Highway: The Untold Story of Orgone, Body Therapy, and Suppressed Emotion

“The flesh alone can translate the unspoken anguish of our deepest selves.”
― Laurence Galian, Crossing the Forbidden Highway: The Untold Story of Orgone, Body Therapy, and Suppressed Emotion

“Nothing reveals our animal nature more than how we tremble at the scent of skin”
― Abyssino

“If I am flesh sunning on rock
if I am brain burning in fluorescent light

if I am dream like a wire with fire
throbbing along it

if I am death to man
I have to know it”
― Adrienne Rich, Diving Into the Wreck