If man were meant to be nude, he would have been born that way.
Oscar Wilde

God looked at his creation and saw that it was good. There is nothing amiss in any part of the human body.
Sister Wendy Beckett

And who is so barbarous as not to understand that the foot of a man is nobler than his shoe, and his skin nobler than that of the sheep with which he is clothed, and not to be able to estimate the worth and degree of each thing accordingly?
Michelangelo Buonarroti

The body always expresses the spirit whose envelope it is. And for him who can see, the nude offers the richest meaning.
Auguste Rodin

I have unbounded admiration for the nude. I worship it like a god.
Auguste Rodin

The human body is first and foremost a mirror to the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that.
Auguste Rodin

There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe than the nude human body.
Robert Henri

Man's naked form... belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages
Auguste Rodin

The Greeks perfected the nude in order that man might feel like a god, and in a sense this is still its function, for although we no longer suppose that God is like a beautiful man, we still feel close to divinity in those flashes of self-identification when, through our own bodies, we seem to be aware of a universal order.
Kenneth Clark

Modern Art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
John Ciardi

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
William Blake

a pretty girl who is naked
is worth a million statues
e. e. cummings

Woman's nudity is wiser than the philosopher's teachings.
Max Ernst

Finding God's most glorious work to be Woman, that all human beauty had been concentrated in her, I resolved to dedicate myself to painting . . . God's most glorious work, more finely than ever had been done.
William Etty

My body is naked now & it was born naked. No matter how I dress up or undress' I'm naked. The hours of the early morning find me naked & I find the hours & the morning just as naked as they find me... The best & juiciest of humanly truths are our naked truths. Our fittest honesty is our naked honesty... This is what I call being truthfully democratic.
Woodrow (Woody) Guthrie

It's always better to be looked over than overlooked.
Mae West
What dance achieves, what play and sex achieve are the same thing that poetry achieves. They transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Jamake Highwater

Pornography is about dominance. Erotica is about mutuality.
Gloria Steinem

Only busy saints and true villains forsake activities which give them pleasure. If you regard yourself as neither, enjoy the world as your own.
Erasmus

The difference between eroticism and pornography is one of art.
André Salvet

The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.
Gloris Leonard
Art has always activated an intensely erotic mechanism-otherwise what sort of art would it be?
Willy Pasini

There is no progress in art, any more than there is in making love.
Man Ray
Why should I be ashamed to describe what nature was not ashamed to create?
Pietro Aretino
We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue than malnutrition
Alex Comfort

Of all the sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity.
Remy de Gourmont

Part of the Duty of the Lover is to Discover, by Experiment, Which are the Pleasure-Giving, Desire-Stimulating areas in the Love Mate.
Eustace Chesser MD

The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter.
Lucian Freud

Eroticism is not brute sex but sex transfigured by the imagination …
Octavio Paz

God wouldn't give you a toy and not let you play with it.
Sister Wendy Beckett

In order to perform coitus according to Divine Law, complete knowledge and full mastery are needed of all things concerning man and woman.
Omar Haleby
Genuine eros makes us desire a particular person; crude desire is satisfiable by fungible bodies.
Edward Craig
The sexual organs not only have a huge role in our imagination of sex, they have given rise to religious ritual, meaning, and art. In fact religion demonstrates that the sex organs and the body's capacity for sexual expressiveness are not only meaningful, they convey the grandest and deepest truths about life.
Thomas Moore

The erotic aspect of my art is not pornography but magic, animation and evocation. My figuration makes no references to figurative art or to pop art, but arises simply because I view this world from inside a human figure and tend to feel affinity with things which appear human.
Victor Newsome
I kissed my first woman and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I have never had time for tobacco since.
Arturo Toscanini
A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point.
Mistinguett
I do not know young man, any other form which fetters the heart of man like a Woman's form.
I do not know young man, any other voice which fetters the heart of man like a Woman's voice.
I do not know young man, any other odor which fetters the heart of man like a Woman's odor.
I do not know young man, any other taste which fetters the heart of man like a Woman's taste.
I do not know young man, any other touch which fetters the heart of man like a Woman's touch.

Buddha

Imagination is intelligence with an erection.
Victor Hugo
O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth! For your love is better than wine. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time for singing has come, and the voice of the dove is heard in our land. O queenly maiden! Your thighs are like jewels and your breasts like two fawns. O loved one, delectable maiden, I will give you my love...
Ecclesiastics
My thoughts on art of nudes and erotic art.

While in the throes of sexual passion I have had this thought cross my mind, "This would make a wonderful painting." If only it were possible to express my sensations of the time, both mental and physical. But that is always the problem in the arts, translating inexpressible sensations from one sense to another. In this case it is the painter translating an experience; emotionally deep, physically thrilling and involving all the senses, by arranging colored pigments on a two dimensional surface. However it is not an impossible task because viewers experience art with more than the eyes, their memories and imagination add to their understanding and appreciation of the art. So the artist, by activating the viewers senses, can create work that appeals to the viewer in depth. The spectator of a work of art is a collaborator with the artist.

I think love and sex are wonderful and should be so expressed by those who agree. Too often art dealing with love and especially sex, is left in the hands of those who degrade it, degrading the people modeling and the viewer. The demonizing of this natural and wonderful gift is most successful when all positive expressions have been squelched.

I have and will continue to depict the nude and sex in my art with all the love and respect, truth and beauty I can.

Lawrence Wallin
What are your thoughts? Do you have any appropriate quotes to recommend? Click here.