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Love, Romance and
You Know What!
Nudity
For
me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Robert Graves - The Naked and the Nude
The
undressed is vulgar -- the nude is pure.
Robert G Ingersoll - Prose-Poems and Selections
Historically, bathing nude
Was never in the least bit rude.
The Greeks, who cannot be construed
As ever being crass or crude,
Would swim and dive and fish for food.
Mama, Papa and all the brood
Caught crabs and eels and ate them stewed
And then, replete in festive mood
Sweet music played and maidens wooed.
No parsimonious prying prude
Quoting St Justin or St Jude
Accused the Greeks of being lewd.
That just was not the attitude.
From Ronnie Barker's - Pebbles on the Beach
A
bather whose garments were strewed
On the beach where she sun-bathed all nude,
Saw a man come along
And unless I'm quite wrong
You expected this line to be lewd.
Source unknown
Full-
frontal nudity … has now become accepted by every
branch of the theatrical profession with the possible
exception of lady accordion-players.
Denis Norden
Nudity
on stage? I think it's disgusting. But if I were 22 with
a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic
and a progressive religious experience.
Shelley Winters
I
was last Thursday at the opera and saw Nicolini strangle a lion with great gallantry. But he represented nakedness so naturally, I was surprised to see these ladies stare at him without any confusion, that pretended to be so violently shocked at a poor double entendre or two in a comedy; which convinced me that these prudes who cry out "Fie! fie!" at the word naked, have no scruples about the thing.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu - Letter to Mrs Hewet 1711
Is
nakedness indecent? O, not inherently. It is your
thought, your sophistication, your fear, your
respectability, that is indecent. There come
moods when these clothes of ours are not only
irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent.
Walt Whitman - Specimen Days
To
be naked is to be oneself.
To be nude is to be seen naked by others,
and yet not recognised for oneself …
Nudity is a form of dress.
John Berger - Ways of Seeing
The
body of someone we love is not altogether
naked, but is clothed and framed in our feelings.
Anatole Boyard -
in, The New York Times, 4 July 1979
A
woman is truly beautiful only when
she is naked and she knows it.
Andre Courreges -
in, The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art Bulletin
I
wasn't really naked. I simply
didn't have any clothes on.
Joesephine Baker -
on her dancing at the Folies Bergeres
When
a reporter asked Marilyn Monroe: "Did
you really have nothing on when you posed
for those ./pictures?" she smiled at him and
replied: "Oh no, I had the radio on."
Source unknown
A
young woman with a stunning figure approached a
well-known artist and asked if he'd paint her in the
nude. He said he'd have to think about it and would
give his answer the next day. When the young
woman phoned the following day to find out his
decision, the artist said, "I'll agree to paint you in
the nude on one condition." What's that?" she
asked. "That you let me keep my socks on so
I've got somewhere to stick my brushes!"
Alan R M Sumner
There
was an old sculptor named Phidias
Whose knowledge of Art was invidious.
He carved Aphrodite
Without any nightie -
Which startled the purely fastidious.
Source unknown
Man
is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own
companions, and the only one who, in his natural
actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne - Essays "Apology for Raimond de Sebonde"
During
a dinner party, the hosts' two little children entered the dining room totally nude and walked slowly around the table.
The parents were so embarrassed that they pretended nothing was happening and kept the conversation going. The guests cooperated and also continued as if nothing extraordinary was happening.
After going all the way around the room, the
children left, and there was a moment of silence
at the table, during which one child was heard to
say, "You see, it IS vanishing cream!"
Source unknown
My
first great Love Mrs Wilkinson … was a widow-her
husband drove the last train out of Lime Street and
was never heard of again. I met her at a party and
I remember we got talking and found that we had
something in common-we were both drunk.
Anyway we finished up at her place and she said
to me, "Why don't you make yourself a bit more
comfortable, take your clothes off." Well, it seemed
a good idea at the time, and she said, "I won't be
a minute." So I was sitting there with nothing on
when she came back with her three children and
said, "That's what you'll look like if you don't eat
your greens."
Spike Mullins - Ronnie in the Chair
I
am convinced that the human race would be
a lot safer if the world became one huge nudist
colony. Think how much harder it would be to
carry concealed weapons.
Cyra McFadden
Not
in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come.
William Wordsworth - Intimations of Immortality
If
God had wanted us to walk around naked,
we would have been born that way.
Anonymous
I
am sure that barbarous people that go naked
come nearer to Adam, God, and the Angels, in
the simplicity of their wealth, than do many among
us who partake of what we nick-name civility and
mode.
Thomas Traherne - Centuries of Meditations
How
idiotic civilisation is! Why be given a body if you have
to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?
Katherine Mansfield - Bliss and Other Stories
Full
nakedness!
All joys are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth'd must be
To taste whole joys …
John Donne - To His Mistress Going To Bed
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