Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.
Thomas MooreRead
When we relate to our bodies as having soul, we attend to their beauty, their poetry and their expressiveness. Our very habit of treating the body as a machine, whose muscles are like pulleys and its organs engines, forces its poetry underground, so that we experience the body as an instrument and see its poetics only in illness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of viewing our bodies as more than just machines, advocating for an appreciation of their beauty and expressiveness.
Thomas Moore encourages us to shift our perception of our bodies from mere mechanical entities to soulful beings. By treating our bodies as machines, we overlook their inherent beauty and emotional expression, confining their 'poetry' to moments of illness rather than in the everyday experience of life. This perspective invites mindfulness and appreciation for our physical form, celebrating it as a vessel of both beauty and meaning.
Themes
BodySoulBeautyExpressivenessPoetryPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a health workshop to highlight the importance of holistic wellness.
More from Thomas Moore
All quotes →How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets.
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Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.
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And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
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Bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves.
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Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
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