Naked-Living with Ancient Brit
Quotations Page 1
Quotations
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I would be pleased to be sent any contributions for this section.
Recent addition to this section appear on the Recent Quotations page
“If we were meant to be nude, we’d have been born that way”
Origin unknown
“Before the Judeo-Christian-Moslem concept of body shame, most of the tropical and temperate world was one big
nudist camp. Greeks and Romans wore clothing when necessary or for certain social functions, but bathing and sports
were openly enjoyed while naked. As exhibited by their sculpture and ceramics, the Greeks revered youth and physical
fitness. To them the body was truly a work of divinity to be admired in its entirety. The Olympics were an offering of
the best young athletes, unencumbered by restrictive and concealing clothes. Gymnos, or naked, was how the athlete
trained and competed.”
From A Brief Overview of the Renewal of Social Nudity in Modern European and American Cultures
“What could be more natural than swimming in the nude? And what could bring such an astonishing feeling of freedom
and a special kind of excitement? Are there any good reasons to look down at nude swimming? I think that is to be a
bit narrowminded. One doesn’t behave any different on a nude beach than on a textile beach except from not wearing
clothes. Respect for one another is crucial as always. If you haven’t tried natural sunbathing yet you have a very special
experience ahead!
You may get a very strong feeling of freedom. The civilization feels somewhat in the background for a while as your
body doesn't show any apparent sign of it. You may therefore experience a feeling of being closer to nature than ever
before. You sharpen your senses and really feel the rough rock or the soft sand under your feet. Feel the flowing water
on your entire body. Feel the wind filling every pore of your skin. Try walking along a beautiful coastline in the very
early morning, when the sun-rays already make you warm and comfortable but still no other people is around. Or go
swimming at night in a shimmering moon-light.”
From Swimming Naturally website
“Why be given a body if we have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?”
Katherine Mansfield
“Skinny-dippers never have to worry where to put wet swimwear so it won’t soak the car seats on the way home!”
Origin unknown
"Clothes therefore, must be truly a badge of greatness; the insignia of the superiority of man over all other animals,
for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things."
from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
"Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the middle we let her alone, and let her float
wherever the current wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds
of things -- we was always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us -- the new clothes Buck’s folks
made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn’t go much on clothes, nohow."
from Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“ ‘The custom of wearing a bathing suit, a desperate attempt to recapture some of our lost innocence, represents a
graphic expression of white man's hypocrisy. For, obviously, the bathing suit is irrelevant to any activity in and under
water. It neither keeps us dry or warm, nor is it an aid to swimming. If the purpose of bathing is to get wet, the bathing
suit does not make us wetter. At best, it is a social dress, like the dinner jacket.’ Yet Americans spend $900,000,000
each year on bathing costumes.”
Bernard Rudovsky
“And the weaver said, ‘Speak to us of clothes’,
And he answered: ‘Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy, you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your body and less of your raiment
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.’ ”
From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
“Never before did I go so close to Nature; never before did she come so close to me….Nature was naked and I was
also…..Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature! - ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once
more! Is not nakedness indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your sophistication, your fear, your
respectability that is indecent. There comes moods when these clothes of ours are too irksome to wear, but are
themselves indecent.”
From A Sun-bathed Nakedness by Walt Whitman
“Nature is not, of course, always benign and beautiful. It can be frightening and terrifying also. Not too many
generations ago, raw nature and wilderness tended to inspire fear and dread in ‘civilised’ people. They represented
Otherness and the Unknown. That which is ‘wild’ is also ‘bewildering’.
Today, wilderness is usually something considered good and in need of preservation. The beauty and awesomeness of it
dominate our attention. We are attracted to wilderness, the Otherness of it, the sense it is inevitably so“The big
problem with pornography is defining it. You can’t just say it’s pictures of people naked. For example, you have these
primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, and they have to go around largely naked, because,
as the old tribal saying goes: ‘N'wam k'honi soit qui mali,’ which means, ‘If you think you can catch a wildebeest in this
climate and wear clothes at the same time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of Northern Mali
that you may be interested in.’
So it’s not considered pornographic when National Geographic publishes color photographs of these people hunting the
wildebeest naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason naked, or whatever. But if
National Geographic were to publish an article entitled ‘The Girls of the California Junior College System Hunt the
Wildebeest Naked,’ some people would call it pornography. But others would not. And still others, such as the
Spectacular Rev. Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked.”
Dave Barry
We cannot adequately appreciate this aspect of nature if we approach it with any taint of human pretence. It will elude
us if we allow artefacts like clothing to intervene between ourselves and this Other.
To apprehend it we cannot be naked enough”
From Walking by Henry David Thoreau
“We say ‘nakedness is natural’, but have we begun to think what all this means?
It is so basic. A human being is an innocent part of nature. Our civilisation has distorted this universal quality that
allows us to feel at home in our skin. Other animals have coats that they accept, but the human race has yet to come to
terms with being nude.
Ruth Barnard
"An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of
stout."
Unknown origin
"There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth."
Agnes Repplier (1855 - 1950)
"We can lie in the language of dress or try ot tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be
silent."
Alison Lurie
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
"Dating’s like going on a job interview. You don’t know if you’ll get the job, but if you do, you get to see the
interviewee naked. "
Waiter Rant, 04-18-06
Origin unknown
“Before the Judeo-Christian-Moslem concept of body shame, most of the tropical and temperate world was one big
nudist camp. Greeks and Romans wore clothing when necessary or for certain social functions, but bathing and sports
were openly enjoyed while naked. As exhibited by their sculpture and ceramics, the Greeks revered youth and physical
fitness. To them the body was truly a work of divinity to be admired in its entirety. The Olympics were an offering of
the best young athletes, unencumbered by restrictive and concealing clothes. Gymnos, or naked, was how the athlete
trained and competed.”
From A Brief Overview of the Renewal of Social Nudity in Modern European and American Cultures
“What could be more natural than swimming in the nude? And what could bring such an astonishing feeling of freedom
and a special kind of excitement? Are there any good reasons to look down at nude swimming? I think that is to be a
bit narrowminded. One doesn’t behave any different on a nude beach than on a textile beach except from not wearing
clothes. Respect for one another is crucial as always. If you haven’t tried natural sunbathing yet you have a very special
experience ahead!
You may get a very strong feeling of freedom. The civilization feels somewhat in the background for a while as your
body doesn't show any apparent sign of it. You may therefore experience a feeling of being closer to nature than ever
before. You sharpen your senses and really feel the rough rock or the soft sand under your feet. Feel the flowing water
on your entire body. Feel the wind filling every pore of your skin. Try walking along a beautiful coastline in the very
early morning, when the sun-rays already make you warm and comfortable but still no other people is around. Or go
swimming at night in a shimmering moon-light.”
From Swimming Naturally website
“Why be given a body if we have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?”
Katherine Mansfield
“Skinny-dippers never have to worry where to put wet swimwear so it won’t soak the car seats on the way home!”
Origin unknown
"Clothes therefore, must be truly a badge of greatness; the insignia of the superiority of man over all other animals,
for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things."
from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
"Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the middle we let her alone, and let her float
wherever the current wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds
of things -- we was always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us -- the new clothes Buck’s folks
made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn’t go much on clothes, nohow."
from Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“ ‘The custom of wearing a bathing suit, a desperate attempt to recapture some of our lost innocence, represents a
graphic expression of white man's hypocrisy. For, obviously, the bathing suit is irrelevant to any activity in and under
water. It neither keeps us dry or warm, nor is it an aid to swimming. If the purpose of bathing is to get wet, the bathing
suit does not make us wetter. At best, it is a social dress, like the dinner jacket.’ Yet Americans spend $900,000,000
each year on bathing costumes.”
Bernard Rudovsky
“And the weaver said, ‘Speak to us of clothes’,
And he answered: ‘Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy, you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your body and less of your raiment
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.’ ”
From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
“Never before did I go so close to Nature; never before did she come so close to me….Nature was naked and I was
also…..Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature! - ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once
more! Is not nakedness indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your sophistication, your fear, your
respectability that is indecent. There comes moods when these clothes of ours are too irksome to wear, but are
themselves indecent.”
From A Sun-bathed Nakedness by Walt Whitman
“Nature is not, of course, always benign and beautiful. It can be frightening and terrifying also. Not too many
generations ago, raw nature and wilderness tended to inspire fear and dread in ‘civilised’ people. They represented
Otherness and the Unknown. That which is ‘wild’ is also ‘bewildering’.
Today, wilderness is usually something considered good and in need of preservation. The beauty and awesomeness of it
dominate our attention. We are attracted to wilderness, the Otherness of it, the sense it is inevitably so“The big
problem with pornography is defining it. You can’t just say it’s pictures of people naked. For example, you have these
primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, and they have to go around largely naked, because,
as the old tribal saying goes: ‘N'wam k'honi soit qui mali,’ which means, ‘If you think you can catch a wildebeest in this
climate and wear clothes at the same time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of Northern Mali
that you may be interested in.’
So it’s not considered pornographic when National Geographic publishes color photographs of these people hunting the
wildebeest naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason naked, or whatever. But if
National Geographic were to publish an article entitled ‘The Girls of the California Junior College System Hunt the
Wildebeest Naked,’ some people would call it pornography. But others would not. And still others, such as the
Spectacular Rev. Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked.”
Dave Barry
We cannot adequately appreciate this aspect of nature if we approach it with any taint of human pretence. It will elude
us if we allow artefacts like clothing to intervene between ourselves and this Other.
To apprehend it we cannot be naked enough”
From Walking by Henry David Thoreau
“We say ‘nakedness is natural’, but have we begun to think what all this means?
It is so basic. A human being is an innocent part of nature. Our civilisation has distorted this universal quality that
allows us to feel at home in our skin. Other animals have coats that they accept, but the human race has yet to come to
terms with being nude.
Ruth Barnard
"An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of
stout."
Unknown origin
"There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth."
Agnes Repplier (1855 - 1950)
"We can lie in the language of dress or try ot tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be
silent."
Alison Lurie
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
"Dating’s like going on a job interview. You don’t know if you’ll get the job, but if you do, you get to see the
interviewee naked. "
Waiter Rant, 04-18-06
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