Mind Body Philosophy Quotes & Sayings

She wanted to say, I am made of smoke. My mind is smoke, my thoughts are smoke, I am all smoke and only smoke. This body is a garment I put on, which by my magic art I have made capable of functioning as a human body functions, it's so biologically perfect that it can conceive children and pop them out in threes, fours and fives. Yet I am not of this body and could, if I chose, inhabit another woman, or an antelope, or a gnat. Aristotle was wrong, for I have lived for aeons, and altered by body when I chose, like a garment of which I had grown tired. The mind and the body are two, she wanted to say, but she knew it would disappoint him to be disagreed with, so she held her tongue. — Salman Rushdie

Even though this deity (the Christian God with a capital "G") has evolved through its 2000 years, it somehow maintains in its current version all old characteristics, whether conflicting or consistent: readiness to punish but ability to heal, vindictiveness yet forgiveness, utter cruelty to outside nonbelievers but looking for converts, etc. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

As it is, the vital question you should be asking is not what I am, but what you yourself are. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Human beings are divided into mind and body. The mind embraces all the nobler aspirations, like poetry and philosophy, but the body has all the fun. — Woody Allen

If you picture other people as superior to yourself, you will realize that
mental image. Putting a preacher, a saint, a prophet, an expert or anybody up on a pedestal in your personal view, fundamentally accomplishes nothing but the effect of putting you in a pit. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The only difference between holding one god as exclusive or supreme and believing in many gods specialized in function is the number. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The real Journey is a personal venture into your own mind content. Nobody, not the greatest mystic, the most vaunted guru, the most hailed psychologist, though they might shuttle you along the trail for a ways, will get you there. Only you yourself can do that. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The love of money is the root of all evil, therefore selfishness must be the seed. — M.D. Birmingham

The concept of a Miracle, that is, an event that takes place somehow beyond the scope of functional Reality, is absurd. . . There cannot be a true miracle. There can only be events that appear miraculous when you don't really understand How Life Works. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

How can we expect to be happy when we have no peace of mind, when our mind is constantly jumping from the present to the past? When your mind is constantly running and filled with anxiety and fear, where is the freedom? You are stuck in the prison of your mind, stuck in thoughts and feelings from yesterday, from five years ago. There comes a time when everyone has to stop, look deep, breathe and let go. — Evan Sutter

Turn away from your animal kind, try to leave your body, just to live in your mind. — James Taylor

It is much easier to concentrate the mind on external things, than to concentrate on the mind itself. For example, a Neuroscientist can be the smartest man (or woman) on earth in his understanding of the human mind. He may know all the neurochemical changes underlying an outrageous behavior of a person. But when he gets mad himself, very little of his own scientific intellect would actually come in handy for him to control his rage. The virtue of self-control is a skill, which requires practice, regardless of all the neurobiological expertise in the world. — Abhijit Naskar

Of the hundreds of religions and philosophies ever entertained by the mind of man, each considered by the convinced holder to be the only valid one, only at the very most one can be accurate. . . Just as obvious should be the possibility, if not likelihood, if not certainty, that none of those hundreds of religions accurately depicts How Life Works. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Understand that religion, at least western versions of it, rests on a type of thinking called Revelation. This mode holds that truths concerning the workings of reality are hidden, masked by, through or behind a deity such that only a few privileged souls are able to see through the veil and "reveal" those truths. . . But (around 1600) revelation as a means of understanding began to be challenged by two other methods of differentiating truth from fallacy: Reason and Empiricism. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Ibn Rushd caressing her body had often praised its beauty to the point at which she grew irritated and said, You do not think my thoughts worth praising, then. He replied that the mind and body were one, the mind was the form of the human body, and as such was responsible for all the actions of the body, one of which was thought. To praise the body was to praise the mind that ruled it. Aristotle had said this and he agreed, and because of this it was hard for him, he whispered blasphemously in her ear, to believe that consciousness survived the body, for the mind was of the body and had no meaning without it. She did not want to argue with Aristotle and said nothing. Plato was different, he conceded. Plato thought the mind was trapped in the body like a bird and only when it could shed that cage would it soar and be free. — Salman Rushdie

The three branches of somaesthetics: the analytic study of the body's role in perception, experience, and action and thus in our mental, moral, and social life; the pragmatic study of methodologies to improve our body-mind functioning and thus expand our capacities of self-fashioning; and the practical branch that investigates such pragmatic methods by testing them on our own flesh in concrete experience and practice. — Richard Shusterman

Keep your mind free and independent even when someone wants to imprison your body. — Debasish Mridha

What does it matter where my body happens to be?' he said. 'My mind goes on working all the same. — Lewis Carroll

You need at least six or seven years to understand the philosophy and concentration of karate to know to clean your spirit of everything and dedicate your mind and body to the sport. — Jean-Claude Van Damme

The religious and scholarly alike arrive at conclusions as to Jesus' nature based on the world-view they hold, the belief structure that shapes their interpretation. Inaccurate views of the function of reality can only lead to erroneous conclusions. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

When, and only when, you clearly see the inner roots to an outer condition, can you change them and thus it. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

If you find that you "disagree" with something I've written, then you missed the point!! — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing - they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me. — Stephen Fry

The reason I said earlier that the mind is neither the Cartesian, highly intellectualized, cranium-confined firm-and-frozen ego, nor the self-effaced, world-immersed, flowing, field-like non-thingy occurrence, is that even though I was feeling my limbs to be alien to myself, that did not mean that I felt them to be disconnected. Rather, they were intimately connected, yet, merely connected to me, and not phenomenologically proper parts of myself. The mind-world boundary seems to have moved from the skin/environment junction to the innervated/denervated junction within the body. So part of the body has become external to the mind, or 'de-minded'. — Istvan Aranyosi

Beauty is achieved through perfection of body and mind. — Elizabeth Michels

Ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, cigarettes or medicine, it usually has the last word because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but its rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality. — Alice Miller

Re-programming your mind, body & spirit is like planting a garden, if the soil isn't right nothing will grow. — Nikki Rowe

Matter is a medium of communication between minds, and everything that exists in the mind can also exist in the body. Furthermore, the body - being the expression of a mental state is developed as a manifestation of the mind. — Ashish Dalela

No art takes places without inspiration. Every artist also needs effective knowledge of his or her tools (e.g., does a certain brush function well with a particular kind of paint?). What's more, artists need effective techniques for using those tools.
Likewise, to express ourselves skillfully with maximum efficiency and minimum effort, we need to investigate the most effective ways of using the mind and body since, in the end, they are the only "tools" we truly possess in life. — H. E. Davey, Japanese Yoga: The Way Of Dynamic Meditation

Various visionaries through time came to see with some degree of clarity that Oneness, that intrinsic connection between Self and experienced Reality. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

I should always find, the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life ... — Daniel Defoe

Anita felt like she finally understood why love was symbolized by the grotesque pumping organ, always threatening to clog, or break, or attack. Because the heart was the body's engine, and love was an act of the body. Your mind could tell you who to hate or respect or envy, but only your body--your nostrils and your mouth and the wide, blank canvas of your skin--could tell you who to love. — Tommy Wallach

Consciousness is the awareness of the interaction and interdependence among mind, body, spirit, and the universe where it resides. — Debasish Mridha

I am not here, I am somewhere else, my body is here but mind is in the sky — Debasish Mridha

Above, in discussing the perceptive notions of Jesus, remarkable concepts of Plato or the highly introspective lessons of Gautama and Lao Tzu, it took considerable discussion to explore the meaning and relate it to How Life Works. Islam presents no such deep pool of thought to pierce. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

I couldn't stop thinking about the body, what a hard fact it was.
That philosopher who said we think, therefore we are, should have
spent an hour in the maternity ward of Waite Memorial Hospital. He'd
have had to change his whole philosophy.
The mind was so thin, barely a spiderweb, with all its fine
thoughts, aspirations, and beliefs in its own importance. Watch how
easily it unravels, evaporates under the first lick of pain. — Janet Fitch

Simply put, the relative age of a philosophical perspective has nothing to do with its veracity. It is pure illusion to imagine that just because a view of life was held and put to words long ago, that it is more valid. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

If knowing the truth is sufficient for you, then practice the art of philosophy. If only living the truth will suffice, then practice the art of love through your mind, your emotions, and your body. — David Deida

Vocal cords are not rental units. No Hebrew prophet, nor Mohammed, nor any founder of any cult or religion ever spoke the words of anybody but themselves. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Judaism, for example, presents itself as monotheistic and retrofits that claim on its history by revising its lore. But in ancient times, Judaism was much more accurately Henotheism, wherein people (particularly common folk) worshipped a principal god while accepting the existence of other deities, or Monolatrism, where many gods were acknowledged, but only one worshipped. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Regardless of type, however, the mechanism of a religion works like this: children, from the time they can communicate, are taught to see reality in a certain way. They are indoctrinated with a pre-defined belief structure and value set. Naive, open to such teaching, given only the religious viewpoint and perhaps punished or ostracized if they don't accept it, most ultimately absorb and mimic the religion outright. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

LINK OUT OF SYNC
When the mind fails to keep pace with the body's maturity
Kamil Ali — Kamil Ali

The tea-masters held that real appreciation of art is only possible to those who make of it a living influence. Thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard of refinement which obtained in the tea-room. In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach beauty. Thus the tea-master strove to be something more than the artist, - art itself. — Okakura Kakuzo

Indeed, of the major religions, Islam offers no discernible sliver of valid notion for How Life Works. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Most people, solidly frozen into long-held, common notions, are unable to grasp clearer views. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. — Karl Marx

We shall always meet teachers but we shall seldom meet good teachers. We shall seldom meet a good teacher who is good enough to direct the body, mind and soul towards the path of true purposefulness. We shall hardly meet good teachers who are good enough to leave indelible and distinctive footprints in our minds; good teachers whose words, thoughts, actions and wonderful deeds would continue to reecho themselves in our minds and become the yardstick, guiding principles and reasons for the steps we take each moment of time. We shall always meet teachers but, we shall seldom and hardly meet great teachers! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

. . . And the consequence to that is, you can never attain a Clear Awareness of life's flow by absorbing and following Old Teachings, however revered by our culture, however vaunted by institutions and fancy buildings, however nice they sound, because you must already hold adequate wisdom in order to even identify it. Unless you can tell which expressions are wise because you are aware of life's nature yourself, you will invariably be soundly, profoundly fooled. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

I am The Dragon
And I have come! — Kehinde Sonola

As a physician, I try to heal the mind before healing the body. That's why most of my patients get better even before they start any medication. — Debasish Mridha

The key realization to delving inwards to deal with the roots of outer symptoms is this: once you have clearly identified the core, inner roots to a problem, you then have authority over the situation. . . If, though, you never delve within. . . you will not eliminate the inner source of the
problem and thus never fully extinguish the external symptom. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

There's still too much energy leftover at this tomb-desk, on Broadway, when I am semi-asleep at night in our bedroom, struggling to get a good night's rest. There's an overflow of loin energy. It spills out from my pores as if I were a cracked drum of reacting chemicals. I need to work to expend this excess energy in words, stories and books ... My mind is a body that's a mind. — Sergio Troncoso

Yoga is bringing fitness in body, calmness in mind, kindness in heart and awareness in life. — Amit Ray

It must be obvious that the Reality we all encounter only works one way, and it functions that way regardless of what the experiencer believes. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

But what you are looking for is not "truth," not a collection of fine and polished answers emanating from grand buildings, expert acknowledgement and advanced academic degrees. What you are looking for is your Self, and what I provide here are some tools and perspectives to aid a Journey through the jungle of explanations and definitions and up a mountain of perspective to where you can see that Self clearly. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

But Lao Tzu's teaching suffers from the major problem endemic to such visionaries. In the intervening two and a half millennia, his words have been misinterpreted and distorted by generations of adherents until his message is riddled with meaningless ritual and dogma. Taoism contracted the conceptual plague: it became a religion. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Weight loss can change your whole character. That always amazed me: Shedding pounds does change your personality. It changes your philosophy of life because you recognize that you are capable of using your mind to change your body. — Jean Nidetch

I do not think either virginity or old age contemptible, and some of the shrewdest minds I have met inhabited the bodies of old maids. — C.S. Lewis

Meditation is the simplest process through which you can create harmony between the body, mind, spirit, and nature. — Debasish Mridha

Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of a physical or mental imbalance. The road to health for everyone is through moderation, harmony, and a 'sound mind in a sound body'. — Jostein Gaarder

In terms of idols which represented various gods: worshipping an idol or star cluster is no different than worshipping a concept. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

You encounter, at its core, a subjective Reality, one based on meaning and value reflective of your own Self, not an objective universe, cold, particle-based and indifferent as science projects. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do this either by teaching or engaging in public affairs itself, correcting through its practice. And the purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone, they become no more than beasts. — Iain Pears

By now you may have concluded that the conversation was neither
about Descartes nor about philosophy, although it certainly was
about mind, brain, and body. My friend suggested it should take
place under the Sign of Descartes, since there was no way of approaching
such themes without evoking the emblematic figure who
shaped the most commonly held account of their relationship. At
this point I realized that, in a curious way, the book would be about
Descartes' Error. You will, of course, want to know what the Error
was, but for the moment I am sworn to secrecy. I promise, though,
that it will be revealed. — Antonio R. Damasio

All knowledge that Science has acquired so far, has been through the concentration of the powers of the mind. — Abhijit Naskar

Strength and weakness are both mental constructs. Now you choose, what's preferable for you. — Abhijit Naskar

I participate in BDSM, but I wasn't abused as a child. I don't hate women, or particularly enjoy hurting women. Sometimes I make them feel pain, but it's consensual, it serves a purpose - to get them off - and they can indicate that they wish me to stop at any time. I do like the power I get from total submission, and the trust that my partner puts in me to give me everything, from her mind to her body, while expecting nothing in return - except the understanding that I won't violate that trust. — Nenia Campbell

Four years ago the clocks started turning back. I open my eyes and see nothing. I feel nothing below or above me. I feel the absence of things. The absence of my flesh, my bones, my body, my mind. All that is left is awareness. I see nothing but the absence of colour. It's not a black darkness. It's simply nothing. The interior of a black hole. I recall news of a black hole lingering along the edges of our solar system. All that time ago. Four years ago. When the clocks started turning back. I hear nothing. Until there is a something. A small thing. A voice. I listen. There are more voices. The sounds are human. How long has it been since I've heard a human? The sounds scratch along my now present attention. They carve into my hearing. They are horrid, wretched things. Voices screaming. Growing loud and desperate. How many voices? Billions. This is the birth of our species. We are born screaming. It's all we know to do. We have screamed for eternity. Within this empty space. — F.K. Preston

In asking philosophical questions, we use a reason shaped by the body, a cognitive unconscious to which we have no direct access, and metaphorical thought of which we are largely unaware. The fact that abstract thought is mostly metaphorical means that answers to philosophical questions have always been, and always will be, mostly metaphorical. In itself, that is neither good nor bad. It is simply a fact about the capacities of the human mind. But it has major consequences for every aspect of philosophy. Metaphorical thought is the principal tool that makes philosophical insight possible and that constrains the forms that philosophy can take. — George Lakoff

Be brave. Be free from philosophies, prophets and holy lies. Go deep into your feelings and explore the mystery of your body, mind and soul. You will find the truth. — Amit Ray

The gospels, never meant to report, but
rather to convince, are in no sense objective and dispassionate biographies. They are glowing accounts meant to persuade people of the writers' convictions. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Your body is an absolute mirror of your mind. As you worry, your body shows it. As you love, your body shows it. As you are overwhelmed, your body shows it. As you are angry your body shows it. Every cell of your body is being allowed or resisted by the way you feel. 'My physical state is a direct reflection of how I feel', instead of 'How I feel is a direct reflection of my physical state'. — Esther Hicks

Beliefs and definitions never clarify how Reality works -- they only distort perception of it. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

I am not the body, I am not the mind
I am the spirit, eternal, joyful and kind. — Debasish Mridha

A sound body with a non-judgmental mind and a heart full of love is the fountain of happiness. — Debasish Mridha

Conformity is often more dangerous than war. War destroys the body but confomity destoys the imaginative mind. — Debasish Mridha

It's free to feed your mind and your mind feeds your body — Benny Bellamacina

We seem to be a self aware confused intelligent greedy cooperative interconnected mammalian psycho-socio-physical spiritbody love/hate generator. A blend of body, mind, intellect, ego, emotion, sexuality, spirit, survival organism, individual, and needful member of a collective -a center of non-local consciousness aided by a nervous system and supported by a body and environment and extended cosmic circumstance. — Laren Grey Umphlett

The very problem of mind and body suggests division; I do not know of anything so disastrously affected by the habit of division as this particular theme. In its discussion are reflected the splitting off from each other of religion, morals and science; the divorce of philosophy from science and of both from the arts of conduct. The evils which we suffer in education, in religion, in the materialism of business and the aloofness of "intellectuals" from life, in the whole separation of knowledge and practice
all testify to the necessity of seeing mind-body as an integral whole. — John Dewey

Deism" in its own day referred not to a superficial theological doctrine but to a comprehensive intellectual tradition that ranged freely across the terrain we now associate with ethics, political theory, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology. It was an astonishingly coherent and systematic body of thought, closer to a way of being than any particular dogma, and it retained its essential elements over a span of centuries, not decades. In origin and substance, deism was neither British nor Christian, as the conventional view supposes, but largely ancient, pagan, and continental, and it spread in America far beyond the educated elite. — Matthew Stewart

That means 19 or 20 of the books of the NT (New Testament) are anonymous. Many are blatantly pseudepigraphic (forgeries, see next section), with famous names applied to artificially promote veracity. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The fact is: Jesus wrote not a solitary word that survives. Equally astounding is historical silence: not a single historical account refers to him during his lifetime from any source whatsoever, Roman or Jewish, official or personal. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

We have no heart at seventeen. We think we do; we think we have been cursed with a holy, bloated thing that twitches at the name we adore, but it is not a heart because though it will forfeit anything in the world-the mind, the body, the future, even the last lonely hour it has-it will not sacrifice itself. — Andrew Sean Greer

One vital aspect in the Path toward Clear Awareness is the beginning of differentiation between belief-induced appearance and Reality. In many ways I can illustrate illusions and point out artificial concepts that are commonly accepted as real, but the onus of recognition is for you to come to see these things as what they are. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

You are the only real authority in your life, but you yield that status to so many externals by believing in them, by having been punished or forced into accepting them. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion. — Marcus Aurelius

No conceptually regimented and normatively informed theory of mental disorder can be devised without taking philosophy of mind seriously and knowing something about this subject area of philosophy and of such topics as consciousness, Intentionality, personal identity, the mind/body problem and rationality. — George Graham

However, science, by its very nature, forms its own inherent boundaries to man's progress. . . Focused as it is on the world out there, categorizing and measuring, theorizing and concluding all things based on external evidence and proof, science misses the core of life: the consciousness doing the experiencing. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

If bread - the staff of life - feeds the body; stories nourish the soul. — Alex Morritt

Clouding the exact evolution of El and Yahweh as concepts (and any other aspect of belief, for neither El nor Yahweh ever existed as anything except mind images of fervent believers) is the invariable propensity of associated religions to revise their history along the way according to subsequently popular interests. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Since the effects of your life that lead to pain and annoyance are always consequences of inner elements, what you commonly regard as "problems" are more accurately seen as outer symptoms of inner, causal problems. The practical approach is to begin looking at those specific aspects of your life that are not as you desire to find their source, rooted in your mindset. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

I have been curious about the mind and body for as long as I can remember. I was a gymnast, a ballet dancer, and a philosophy and physical therapy major. Following the thread of curiosity about mind and body, I took my first yoga class in 1980 and knew from the start that it would be a lifelong passion. — Rodney Yee

However, in regards to the theological aspects of each religion, tradition or philosophy, the same exacting standard must be set as measurement: does it clearly and accurately depict the functionality of Reality? That is, does the cosmology precisely describe how Reality works? If not, then the religion is invalid. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

In formulating any philosophy the first consideration must always be: What can we know? That is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable. Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything? Descartes hinted at the problem when he wrote, 'My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs. — Woody Allen

While scholarly research provides extensive information, the real Jesus, the man who voiced various timeless insights on life, can only be revealed when life is understood better than the common mindset of our time allows. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

A butler supplies food to nourish your body, but a writer nourishes your mind through writing. — Debasish Mridha

Furthermore, as the body suffers the horrors of disease and the pangs of pain, so we see the mind stabbed with anguish, grief and fear. What more natural than that it should likewise have a share in death? — Titus Lucretius Carus

The only creative force capable of causally revising your experienced reality is your power to change your Self. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Reality, in its essence, consists not of particles interacting pointlessly in an
independent physical plane, but rather of values, psychological elements of
mind, made real. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction. The mind is at peace, and the body also. The two are sufficient to themselves. Happiness is elusive
coming perhaps once in a life-time
and approaching ectasy. — Daphne Du Maurier