Thinness Quotes

• Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth if th' other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Suth wilt thou be to me, who must Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I began.

  John Donne

  Running, Moving, Home

  c.1595-1605 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

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• Girls developed eating disorders when our culture developed a standard of beauty that they couldn't obtain by being healthy. When unnatural thinness became attractive, girls did unnatural things to be thin.

  Mary Pipher

  Girl, Anorexia, Healthy

  Mary Pipher (2005). “Reviving Ophelia”, p.165, Penguin

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• Being slim is the new elitism. Thinness today says that you are richer, smarter and more successful than the overweight masses.

  David Zinczenko

  Successful, Today, Slim

  "NOTICED; Men Who Step Up to the Scale and Crow" by David Colman, www.nytimes.com. September 8, 2002.

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• A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience.

  Naomi Wolf

  Motivational, Beauty, Women

  Naomi Wolf (2013). “The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women”, p.187, Random House

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• Our two souls therefore which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.

  John Donne

  Two, Soul, Gold

  c.1595-1605 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

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• Gold to airy thinness beat.

  Cassandra Clare

  Gold, Beats, Airy

  Cassandra Clare (2011). “Clockwork Prince”, p.204, Simon and Schuster

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• A culture fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.

  Naomi Wolf

  Bad Ass, Mad, Political

  "The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women". Book by Naomi Wolf, 1990.

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• The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.

  H. L. Mencken

  Ends, Motive

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• If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do.

  John Donne

  Moving, Two, Feet

  John Donne (1839). “The Works of John Donne: With a Memoir of His Life”, p.555

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• We know that ever woman wants to be thin. Our images of womanhood are almost synonymous with thinness.

  Susie Orbach

  Food, Want, Knows

  Susie Orbach (1997). “Fat is a Feminist Issue: The Anti-diet Guide for Women”, Bbs Publishing Corporation

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• If I had been a different sort of person, maybe less impressionable, less intense, less fearful, less utterly dependent upon the perceptions of others - maybe then I would not have bought the cultural party line that thinness is the be-all and end-all of goals. Maybe if my family had not been in utter chaos most of the time, maybe if my parents were a little better at dealing with their own lives maybe if I'd gotten help sooner, or if I'd gotten different help, maybe if I didn't so fiercely cherish my secret, or if I were not such a good liar, or were not quite so empty inside... maybe.

  Marya Hornbacher

  Liars, Party, Goal

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• Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.

  Frank O'Hara

  Mother, Kids, Giving

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• [On her thinness:] It's not what you'd call a figure, is it?

  Twiggy

  Figures

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• Fresh pitsand, however, in spite of all its excellence in concrete structures, is not equally useful in stucco, the richness of which, when the lime and straw are mixed with such sand, will cause it to crack as it dries on account of the great strength of the mixture. But river sand, though useless in "signinum" on account of its thinness, becomes perfectly solid in stucco when thoroughly worked by means of polishing instruments.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Mean, Rivers, Excellence

  "De architectura". Book by Vitruvius. Book II, Chapter IV, Section 3,

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• Beware the mediocrity that threatens middle age, its limitation of thought and interest, its dullness of fancy, its too external life, and mental thinness.

  Margaret Fuller

  Age, Mediocrity, Fancy

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• Nothing fans me into such a state of peaceful mental somnambulance as the intellectual antics of a person who displays his learning, not from vanity always, but frequently because it is all he has got; no real sense, no wisdom of his own, merely much good stuff he has learned from other sources. He spreads it like a garment as any other decent person would to hide the thinness of his shanks.

  Corra May Harris

  Real, Vanity, Peaceful

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• Maybe I'm a bad feminist, but I am deeply committed to the issues important to the feminist movement. I have strong opinions about misogyny, institutional sexism that consistently places women at a disadvantage, the inequity in pay, the cult of beauty and thinness, the repeated attacks on reproductive freedom, violence against women, and on and on. I am as committed to fighting fiercely for equality as I am committed to disrupting the notion that there is an essential feminism.

  Roxane Gay

  Inspiring, Strong, Fighting

  "Roxane Gay: the bad feminist manifesto" by Roxane Gay, www.theguardian.com. August 2, 2014.

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• I must reject fluids and ethers of all kinds, magnetical, electrical, and universal, to whatever quintessential thinness they may be treble distilled, and as it were super-substantiated.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  May, Kind, Electricity

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1853). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.382

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• It suddenly hit me—it was nearly impossible to take good care of something I hated. I’d spent so long hating my body that I didn’t know how to respect and nurture myself or my body. By focusing so much on my exterior, I also robbed myself of the opportunity to feel good about myself and my body, simply because I didn't meet a cultural standard of beauty that is obsessed with thinness. That created stress that interfered with my weight loss and with my own happiness.

  Jessica Ortner

  Hate, Stress, Loss

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• Women with body image or eating disorders are not a special category; [they’re] just more extreme in their response to a culture that emphasizes thinness and impossible standards of appearance for women instead of individuality and health.

  Gloria Steinem

  Individuality, Special, Eating Disorder

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• I don’t recommend that average iPad Air owners upgrade to the Air 2. But what about the vast majority of iPad owners who own older models? That’s a different story. If you have an iPad 2, 3 or 4, the new Air 2 will make a big difference. Its thinness and lightness will be a dramatic change, and it will be faster and more fluid. However, here’s the catch: Upgrading to last year’s iPad Air would have pretty much the same effect, and that model is now, suddenly, $100 cheaper, starting at $399.

  Walt Mossberg

  Air, Average, Years

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• I think reality is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves.

  Stephen King

  Reality, Thinking, Lakes

  Stephen King (1999). “Bag of Bones”, p.108, Simon and Schuster

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• When you live alone, your furnishings, your possessions, are always confronting you with the thinness of your existence.

  Zoë Heller

  Existence, Possession, Confronting

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• I just have a real problem with people who seek to portray fatness or thinness as moral concepts.

  Julie Burchill

  Real, People, Moral

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• On her extreme thinness during her 'Ally McBeal' years: "I started under-eating, over-exercising, pushing myself too hard and brutalizing my immune system. I guess I just didn't find time to eat. I am much more healthy these days.

  Calista Flockhart

  Exercise, Years, Anorexia

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