Epictetus, fragment 23 Schenkl (excerpt; tr. W.A. Oldfather, with his note):
At all events we love and tend our body, the most unpleasant and dirtiest thing that there is; why, if we had had to tend our neighbour's body for no more than five days, we could not have endured it. Just consider what a nuisance it is to get up in the morning and brush some other person's teeth, and then after attending to a call of nature to wash those parts. Truly it is wonderful to love a thing for which we perform so many services every day. I stuff this bag here;4 and then I empty it; what is more tiresome?
4 Pointing to his belly.
τὸ γοῦν σῶμα, τὸ πάντων ἀηδέστατον καὶ ῥυπαρώτατον, στέργομεν καὶ θεραπεύομεν· εἰ γὰρ ἔδει πέντε μόναις ἡμέραις θεραπεῦσαι τὸ τοῦ γείτονος σῶμα, οὐκ ἂν ὑπεμείναμεν. ὅρα γὰρ οἷόν ἐστιν ἕωθεν ἀναστάντα τρίβειν τοὺς ὀδόντας τοὺς ἀλλοτρίους καί τι τῶν ἀναγκαίων ποιήσαντα ἀπονίζειν ἐκεῖνα τὰ μέρη. τῷ ὄντι θαυμαστόν ἐστι φιλεῖν πρᾶγμα, ᾧ τοσαῦτα λειτουργοῦμεν καθ᾿ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν. νάττω τουτονὶ τὸν θύλακον· εἶτα κενῶ· τί τούτου βαρύτερον;
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Unpublished Fragments from the Period of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Summer 1882-Winter 1883/84), tr. Paul S. Loeb and David F. Tinsley (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019 =
The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, vol. 14), p. 201 (Notebook 5, number 30):
Sacrilege against the body is for me a sacrilege against the
earth and against the meaning of the earth. Pity those unhappy
people for whom the body seems evil and beauty diabolical!
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Nachgelassene Fragmente 1882-1884, edd. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, 2. Aufl. (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1988 =
Kritische Studienausgabe, Bd. 10), p. 225:
Am Leibe zu freveln das gilt mir als ein Freveln an der Erde und am Sinn der Erde. Wehe dem Unseligen, dem der Leib böse und die Schönheit teuflisch scheint!