A collection of quotes

What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful that the garment with which it is clothed? - Michaelangelo

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfils the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form. Albert Einstein

There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate government action. Bertrand Russell, from An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish

“The main hangup in the world today is hypocrisy and insecurity. If people can’t face up to the fact of other people being naked or smoking pot, or whatever they want to do, then we’re never going to get anywhere. People have got to become aware that it’s none of their business and that being nude is not obscene. Being ourselves is what’s important. If everyone practiced being themselves instead of pretending to be what they aren’t, there would be peace.” - John Lennon

Sexual modesty cannot in any simple way be identified with the use of clothing, nor shamelessness with the absence of clothing and total or partial nakedness. There are circumstances in which nakedness is not immodest.. .Nakedness, as such, is not to be equated with physical shamelessness. Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regards to the value of the person... The human body is not in itself shameful, nor for the same reason are sensual reactions, and human sensuality in general. Shamelessness (just like shame and modesty) is a function of the interior of the person. Pope John Paul II

I believe that people have the right to their own beliefs. I do not feel people have got the right to stop me from expressing my beliefs by picking up the phone, calling the police and having me put in prison. - Steve Gough, who walked from Land's end to John O'groats naked.

To be offended by the visual appearance of another person is prejudice, akin to racism. The right to exist, uncovered, should hold precedence over the right not to view this, for the objection is irrational. - Terri Webb

The best thing to do would be to designate everywhere as clothing optional, and we could leave little fenced in areas for the prudes to prance around in. Call them Prudist Camps. They could peer out of their fences and indulge in their offensive I'm offended behavior whenever they saw a natural person walk by, without bothering the rest of us. - Anonymous

Not all the Greek runners in the original Olympics were totally naked. Some wore shoes. - Mark Twain

Being natural and matter-of-fact about nudity prevents your children from developing an attitude of shame or disgust about the human body. If parents are very secretive about their bodies and go to great lengths to prevent their children from ever seeing a buttock or breast, children will wonder what is so unusual, and even alarming, about human nudity. - Dr. Lee Salk, Psychiatrist

Some day people will grow up and realize that the only thing vile about human bodies is the small minds some people have developed within them. - Dick Hein

Clothes make the man, but nakedness makes the human being. - Kevin Kearney

Are we so narrow minded that we show war, murder, rape, etc. on TV, but we do not allow to show one of the most wonderful creations (the human body) in its natural form. - Mario Roman

I am not a naturist, a nudist, a streaker, nor an exhibitionist. Labels are for clothes. My unclothed appearance is also not motivated sexually nor out of any gratuitous need to seek attention. I believe that while society continues to have a fundamentally negative relationship with the human body and appearance, we can never be a free or mature society. It's the 21st century. Time to evolve. - Russell Higgs