#flesh

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

#christ #christianity #discipleship #discipline #fasting

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

#procrastination #self-discipline #procrastination

5. If You Love, Love Openly Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master. Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting. Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written her, she said: "If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now. ↗

— Nyogen Senzaki

#zen #zen-flesh-zen-bones #love

Our loved ones are always with us whether they are of the flesh or of the spirit. ↗

— Lynn Hubbard

#loved-ones #spirit #love

Martindale had no valid claim on Smiley either professionally or socially. He worked on the fleshy side of the Foreign Office and his job consisted of lunching visiting dignitaries whom no one else would have entertained in his woodshed. He was a floating bachelor with a grey mane and that nimbleness which only fat men have. ↗

— John le Carré

#fleshy #nimbleness #men

I want 'Flesh Of My Flesh' to be like my connection to the community, I want to say what's on my peoples' minds, soak up all their pain. I've learned that when I take it all in, I can make one brotha's pain be understood by the world. ↗

— DMX

#connection #flesh #i #i can #learned

Chinese women are much more modest than American women when it comes to clothes. We tend to show less flesh. ↗

— Ziyi Zhang

#american women #chinese #clothes #comes #flesh

Whatever man uses without the fear of God, whatever he applies to the mere gratifying of his flesh, cannot fail to operate as a poison to the soul, however pleasant and salutary it may appear to be to the body. ↗

— Johann Arndt

#applies #body #cannot #fail #fear

Yet, so far from laboring to know the forbidden tree of worldly pleasures and its various fruits, man gives himself up to a careless and thoughtless state of life, and yields to the lust of the flesh, not considering that this lust is really the forbidden tree. ↗

— Johann Arndt

#considering #far #flesh #forbidden #fruits

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images. ↗

— Ingmar Bergman

#flesh #i #i write #images #scripts