Bodies We Wear Quotes & Sayings

In effect, Saudi Arabia legitimizes fundamentalism, religious discrimination, intolerance and the oppression of women. Saudi women not only can't drive, but are also told by some clerics that they mustn't wear seatbelts for fear of showing the outlines of their bodies. — Nicholas Kristof

Oh, yes. I'd do it all again; the spirit is willing yet; I feel the same desire to do the work but the flesh is weak. It's too bad that our bodies wear out while our interests are just as strong as ever. — Susan B. Anthony

Bodies wear out to remind us they are temporary, and force us to spend more thought on our spirits — Morgan Llywelyn

Kids have little computer bodies with disks that store information. They remember who had to do the dishes the last time you had spaghetti, who lost the knob off the TV set six years ago, who got punished for teasing the dog when he wasn't teasing the dog and who had to wear girls boots the last time it snowed. — Erma Bombeck

While I would champion any campaign to support Muslim women who do not wish to cover. I would now also protest vigorously for the right of a woman to wear that covering, if it is what she wants and believes in. Ayatollah Khomeini and Jacques Chirac have much more in common than either of them would care to acknowledge. Each tried to solve overarching social problems by imposing his will on the bodies of women. — Geraldine Brooks

If you really think about it, humans must look really strange to animals. We have more than one way of communicating, we're ashamed of our bodies as to where it's a law to wear fabrics, we destroy natural civilizations for artificial ones, and despite being of the same species, we always look past that aspect and question, judge, hurt and kill each other over what makes us different. — Lauren Lola

It brings a lump into the throat to see how they go over, and run and fall. A man would like to spank them, they are so stupid, and to take them by the arm and lead them away from here where they have no business to be. They wear grey coats and trousers and boots, but for most of them the uniform is far too big, it hangs on their limbs, their shoulders are too narrow, their bodies too slight; no uniform was ever made to these childish measurements. — Erich Maria Remarque

That day, that moment, opened a curiosity of bodies,
shaped us as irrevocably as our first kiss, our first realizations. You go into that moment never really knowing
if the closeness will wear well, if it is something that should
happen. I know she wasn't sure of me, and I wasn't sure of me, either. But we discovered something in the unspoken,
found care in our caring whispers, instinctive. — David Levithan

The bodies we wear," he said. "They're not the ones we always want. They get damaged. Used. It's who we are on the inside that counts. The person waiting to jump free. — Jeyn Roberts

Great teachers often come to us in humble packaging. That little dog held the wisdom of a sage in his heart. I learned from him that healing is not about the success or failure of the physical body, that physical survival is secondary. All creatures wish to live and thrive, but bodies do wear out. The number of days we walk the earth (or fly or swim or crawl on it) is not the point. Animals live in the present moment. If kindness, caring, and respect fill that moment, life is fill, no matter what came before or what might come in the future. A soul that feels loved is joyous and healed. — Linda Bender

One fan sent me one tooth, so I made a necklace out of it. But then I found a bunch of my baby teeth, and started realizing I would love to wear a piece of my fans' bodies on me. — Kesha

I'm not a model - I have curves. I find things that accentuate my body, a woman's body, and I always wear things that I feel comfortable in. — Demi Lovato

Our bodies are our vehicles of life. They are ours to take care of. If we aren't taking care of them, they show signs of stress and wear. If we are taking care of our bodies, they show signs of healing and resiliency. A healthy body is an inspired body, and an inspired body is a happy body. — Elaina Marie

Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: "There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers." But we cannot change our bones nor our body. — Ayn Rand

I knew you had taste. Though your lack of hat is rather shocking."
"Oh, fie on this country and its inordinate affection for hats. I would sooner love every child alive than I would wear a hat. My head is perfectly covered by my hair."
"But the sun! We Albens have a terrible fear of letting it touch more of our bodies than absolutely necessary."
"Which would explain the dour and listless spirit that pervades this country. Perhaps if you gave the sun a bit more attention, it would be flattered and come out more often. — Kiersten White

Enjoy your life. God gave us our bodies as a gift. (Granted, to some of us it's kind of a gag gift, but that's okay too.) Wear what you want, love who you want, and have fun. — Ellen DeGeneres

Youth is a lifestyle; it's not a blessing from God. If we treat our bodies as if they are not the most precious things we possess, then obviously we will show wear and tear. We're like a good pair of jeans. If we take care of them, they'll remain classic forever, but if we batter and abuse them they'll look like tattered old rags. — Akshay Kumar

Don't tell thin women to eat a cheeseburger. Don't tell fat women to put down the fork. Don't tell underweight men to bulk up. Don't tell women with facial hair to wax, don't tell uncircumcised men they're gross, don't tell muscular women to go easy on the dead-lift, don't tell dark-skinned women to bleach their vagina, don't tell black women to relax their hair, don't tell flat-chested women to get breast implants, don't tell "apple-shaped" women what's "flattering," don't tell mothers to hide their stretch marks, and don't tell people whose toes you don't approve of not to wear flip-flops. And so on, etc, etc, in every iteration until the mountains crumble to the sea. Basically, just go ahead and CEASE telling other human beings what they "should" and "shouldn't" do with their bodies unless a) you are their doctor, or b) SOMEBODY GODDAMN ASKED YOU. — Lindy West

The problem, of course, is that at any given historical moment, prevailing views about the right changes to make in how we care for our bodies can be bullying and shaming. There is a lot of widespread guilt about diet, exercise, sex, and treatments. How insistent all the advice is! Have sex a lot, don't have any sex; eat heartily, eat with restraint; hold your body in stillness, move it and have it moved; bind your ample body tightly, wear soft clothes but have no fat. Not only are the various instructions different; they are directly at odds with each other. Yet, despite our historical track record on these matters, we are today generally confident that we know best- that science and other experts have now got it right, after a long history of nonsense. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed. — Libba Bray

The message sent by this policy is that if women are to be accepted into the exclusive ranks of men, then they have to look like men: buttoned up, stuffy, and no-nonsense. As if to show a little cleavage, to highlight a curvaceous figure, or to in any way appear feminine would discount, discredit, and disqualify them.
I strongly disagree with this idea. I feel that women should wear clothes that suit their bodies rather than forcing themselves into unflattering men's suits and that it is feminist to to make a wide range of women's clothes acceptable business attire. — Tim Gunn

Rey is so strong. She's cool and smart and she can look after herself. Young girls can look at her and know that they can wear trousers if they want to. That they don't have to show off their bodies. — Daisy Ridley

The gym exposes deficiencies in our bodies' strength and stamina - and appearance. You can wear all kinds of daytime clothes that hide or minimize aspects of your body that you would like to be less visible to the eye. But in the gym, you cannot hide them. There you and your coach (and unfortunately everyone around you) can see where you bulge where you shouldn't. It's an incentive to get to work. And so this metaphor tells us that when life is going along just fine, the flaws in our character can be masked and hidden from others and from ourselves. But when troubles and difficulties hit, we are suddenly in "God's gymnasium" - we are exposed. Our inner anxieties, our hair-trigger temper, our unrealistic regard of our own talents, our tendency to lie or shade the truth, our lack of self-discipline - all of these things come out. — Timothy J. Keller

A study of fifty women conducted in 1887 revealed that the corset forcibly contracted their waists by anywhere between two and a half and six bodies. The pressure it applied to women's bodies averaged twenty-one pounds but could reach as high as eighty-eight pounds. Tight-lacing was thus akin to crushing oneself slowly from all sides. As a harsh critic of the corset noted, 'It is evident, physiologically, that air is the pabulum of life, and that the effects of a tight cord round the neck and of tight-lacing only differ in degree ... for the strangulations are both fatal. To wear tight stays is in many cases to wither, to waste and to die. — Joshua Zeitz

Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint ... They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems. — Thomas Merton

The real issue has nothing to do with whether women wear makeup or don't, gain weight or lose it, have surgery or shun it, dress up or down, make our clothing and faces and bodies into works of art or ignore adornment altogether. The real problem is our lack of choice. — Naomi Wolf

If the justification for controlling women's bodies were about women themselves, then it would be understandable. If, for example, the reason was 'women should not wear short skirts because they can get cancer if they do.' Instead the reason is not about women, but about men. Women must be 'covered up' to protect men. I find this deeply dehumanizing because it reduces women to mere props used to manage the appetites of men. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We wear the global sweat of women and girls on our bodies" - Angela Davis, lecture at UC Davis, Sponsored by the Women's Resources and Research Center — Angela Davis

We teachers break our bodies to give you a shirt that you will wear in the future, to conferences, to presidential speeches, to autograph signings. That is up to you and if you can do that for at least in a little thank to us. Then thank you, thank you all. — Pedro A. Perez Raymond

No, it is you who are mistaken," he said. "Look at you. You are neither man nor beast, but some pathetic creature who is less than both. You hate what you are and want to be what you cannot truly become. Your appearance may change, and you may wear all the fine clothes that you can steal from the bodies of your victims, but you will still be a wolf inside. Even then, what do you think will happen once your outer transformation is complete, when you start to resemble fully what once you hunted? You will look like a man, and the pack will no longer recognize you as its own. What you most desire is the very thing that will doom you, for they will tear you apart and you will die in their jaws as others have died in yours. — John Connolly

For him, the control over his subs' minds and bodies was what he was after. The things he did to them sexually or otherwise, the things he said, what he made them wear ... it was all carefully calibrated for effect. Sure, there was pain involved, and yeah, maybe they cried from the vulnerability and the fear. But they begged him for more. — J.R. Ward

For guys who are into fitness, I think it's important to wear slim-fit stuff that is pretty tight so they can show off the bodies they have been working hard to have. Women are going to appreciate that. — Carl Hagelin

It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labour as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies. — Pope Leo XIII

It seems probable to me that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the end for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles, being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even so very hard as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God had made one in the first creation. — Isaac Newton