Maurice Merleau-Ponty Quotes

Visible and mobile, my body is a thing among things; it's caught in the fabric of the world, and its cohesion is that of a thing. But, because it moves itself and sees, it holds things in a circle around itself.

The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project

The body is our general medium for having a world.

My work is very bodily. It's not a shell, but a body.

Juggling is a conversation with the stick, the body, the brain.

Place and the scale of space must be measured against our bodies and their capabilities.

The longer a line, the more of the time element it contains. Distance is time whereas a surface is apprehended more in terms of the moment.

Look at your hand. Its structure does not match the structure of assertions, the structure of facts. Your hand is continuous. Assertions and facts are discontinuous.... You lift your index finger half an inch; it passes through a million facts. Look at the way your hand goes on and on, while the clock ticks, and the sun moves a little further across the sky.

Space and time are "sensed" not seen. They are created in consciousness which is spaceless and timeless.

I am not in front of my body, I am in it or rather I am it... If we can still speak of interpretation in relation to the perception of one's own body, we shall have to say that it interprets itself.

Affective gestures pointing to things near either in time or space should be made with the hand not very far from the body of the person pointing; and if these things are distant, the hand of the painter should be more extended and the face turned toward the person to whom he is addressing the demonstration.

I think I exist,' he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my own identity. I was born, and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously.

My hand feels touched as well as it touches; reality says this, and nothing more.

The body is a vehicle for the mind, and that vehicle is how you travel through space.

The body moves naturally, automatically, without any personal intervention or awareness. If we think too much, our actions become slow and hesitant.

The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs.

The sense of space within the reality of any building is a new concept wherever architecture is concerned. But it is essential ancient principle just the same and is not only necessary now but implied by the ideal of democracy itself.

That's how it will be, except that in reality, both today and later, one will stand there with a palpable body and a real head, a real forehead, that is, for smiting on with one's hand.

I mean I love movement. I mean the energy that comes from the way I move. We get energy from how we move. I mean the control I get from knowing everything about how my body feels and how it is working.

No one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move.

"You are the actor, and I understand we already had our sit down, you explained your concept, your view," so I said, "Okay, I'm in your hands." That means that if you've got to nudge me a little bit to the right I move to the right, just from the pressure, weight, but you won't have to touch me at all. You can come and go "Okay, you want me over here a little bit more," so no pressure on us at all that's easy to do.

It’s the feeling of total control. When you are properly trained, your body works hard — but when you move, you do not suffer. That’s the feeling I am looking for.

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh. The effect that they make in space is as bound up with them as might be their colour or smell ... Therefore the painter must be as concerned with the air surrounding his subject as with the subject itself. It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to give out.

In film, a dancer should always be shot from head to toe, because that way you can see the whole body and that is the art of dancing. Nowadays they shoot the nose. Left nostril. Right nostril. Hand. Foot. Bust. Derrière. The film prevents you from determining who is a good dancer and who is not.

What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.