Hygiene Quotes

“Please, Percy...change your clothes. You smell like you've been run over by an electric horse.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“Civilisation is the distance that man has placed between himself and his own excreta.”
― Brian Aldiss, The Dark Light Years

“After a while the Senior Wrangler said, "Do you know, I read the other day that every atom in your body is changed every seven years? New ones keep getting attached and old ones keep on dropping off. It goes on all the time. Marvelous, really."

The Senior Wrangler could do to a conversation what it takes quite thick treacle to do to the pedals of a precision watch.

"Yes? What happens to the old ones?" said Ridcully, interested despite himself.

"Dunno. They just float around in the air, I suppose, until they get attached to someone else."

The Archchancellor looked affronted.

"What, even wizards?"

"Oh, yes. Everyone. It's part of the miracle of existence."

"Is it? Sounds like bad hygiene to me," said the Archchancellor. "I suppose there's no way of stopping it?"

"I shouldn't think so," said the Senior Wrangler, doubtfully. "I don't think you're supposed to stop miracles of existence."

"But that means everythin' is made up of everythin' else," said Ridcully.

"Yes. Isn't it amazing?”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

“A customer facing crucial decisions:

What should I wipe myself with? What should I brush with? His personal hygiene was deteriorating rapidly as he stared at the rows of possibilities, sweating profusely. Would he ever bathe again?”
― Benson Bruno, A Story that Talks About Talking is Like Chatter to Chattering Teeth, and Every Set of Dentures can Attest to the Fact that No . . .

“Our assholes will be clean but we must never wash our hands. Our immune systems will be strengthened by our being dirty. Not filthy. Just mildly grimy. Filthy fingernails have always been a favorite fashion accessory of mine. Especially when you place your hands in the prayer positions. Matter of fact, I urge all my followers to forgo nail polish permanently and replace it with expertly applied soot. The nonexistent gods above will ignore our prayers better this way.”
― John Waters, Role Models

“I must go the washroom. I've shaken a lot of hands.”
― Yann Martel

“Well, a lot’s happened since I last showered.”
― Nicki Elson, Three Daves

“[E]ven our most personal decisions about caring for our bodies have long been influenced and manipulated by larger power structures.”
― James Hamblin, Clean: The New Science of Skin

“One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.”
― Tahir Shah, Travels With Myself

“The time to clean our city of any dirt begins with individual action for collective clean communities.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Turns out that washing your hands, maintaining personal hygiene, being considerate of other’s personal space, and covering up when you cough or sneeze… Basically everything my Mom taught me when I was a kid… is what will save the world.”
― Steve Maraboli

“Performance does not matter if Hygiene is missing.”
― Harjeet Khanduja, Nothing About Business

“When we clean obsessively we do indeed get rid of everything, both bad and good. This can not be a good kind of cleanliness. As it happens the higher the hygiene standards in a country the higher that nations incidents of allergies and autoimmune diseases. The more sterile a household is the more its members will suffer from allergies and autoimmune diseases. Thirty years ago about 1 person in 10 had an allergy. Today that figure is 1 in 3. At the same time, the number of infections has not fallen significantly. This is not smart hygiene.”
― Giulia Enders, Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ

“The best advice right now is to think of hygiene as similar to medicine—extremely important in some scenarios, and also very possible to overdo.”
― James Hamblin, Clean: The New Science of Skin

“Sometimes the clothes are cleaner than, or even clean unlike, the person (wearing them).”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“A good Pile of Trash wins a favorite interest of a dustpan.”
― Syntraits

“I think one of the biggest plagues of modern life is sterility. People are becoming sick, because they're too sterile. They live in too sterile a world. They don't touch living organisms, so they have no immunity to nature. And you can't live separate from nature.”
― Geoff Lawton

“A dishwasher has a spinning blade inside, and that's like an internal helicopter of cleanliness. Next time, try hygiene and flying, which is to almost attain the status of The Duck.”
― Jarod Kintz, Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.

“Picture an incubator filled with little germ-infested creatures crawling all over one another drooling and sneezing with their mouths open. Then draw them all into a tiny section of the incubator to use the "potty" and instruct them all to "wash their hands." Then have each one of them turn on the faucet with their well-traveled little fingers that each harbor a multitude of secrets; run them for half a second under icy water that serves as a refreshing drink to the busy bacteria who live and work on said fingers; then make sure the faucet is turned off with the same fingers that turned it on so any of the viruses and bacteria that may have taken a rest stop on that faucet handle can hop back on their tiny finger chariots to fulfill their manifest destiny. One last stop at the towel that everyone has wiped his or her hands and/or noses on, and a whole new generation of infectious disease has been born.”
― Jim Gaffigan, Dad Is Fat

“no man was permitted to smell worse than his horse”
― Jonathan Renshaw, Dawn of Wonder

“To take showers, one needs to heat water in a bucket by using two induction cables, which are either connected to a socket or plugged directly into a power generator. If this method sounds dangerous, rest assured, it is. One time, I touched the water while my cousin was warming it for his shower. The electric shock threw me back.”
― Gabriel Nadales, Behind the Black Mask: My Time as an Antifa Activist

“Pastor Wyatt still shakes hands with people. He pays no attention to the warning to switch to the elbow bump. Cole remembers learning about this while he was still in regular school. Public health officials were trying to get people to switch because touching elbows did not spread infection the way touching hands did. Cole knows there are many people who have switched, but he sees the elbow bump only when he is around strangers. The people he sees every day make fun of the elbow bump. They shake hands and they hug one another, even through Pastor Wyatt says the disease that spared them all this time around is neither the last nor the worst of its kind. Other plagues are coming, he says, smiling. And he thinks they will be here soon.”
― Sigrid Nunez, Salvation City

“The school stank of Lysol, and several times a day they all had to line up and wash their hands. Clean hands save lives was the message being hammered into them. When it came to spreading infection, they were informed, they themselves--school kids--were the biggest culprits. Even if you weren't sick yourself, you could shed germs and make other people sick. Cole was struck by the word shed. The idea that he could shed invisible germs the way Sadie shed dog hairs was awesome to him. He pictured the germs as strands of hair with legs like centipedes, invisible but crawling everywhere.

Minibottles of sanitizer were distributed for use when soap and water weren't available. Everyone was supposed to receive a new bottle each day, but the supply ran out quickly--not just at school but all over. Among teachers this actually brought relief, because the white, slightly sticky lotion was so like something else that some kids couldn't resist. Gobs started appearing on chairs, on the backs of girls' jeans, or even in their hair, and one boy caused an uproar by squirting it all over his face.

Never Sneeze into Your Hand, read signs posted everywhere. And: Keep Your Hands to Yourself (these signs had actually been there before but now had a double meaning).

If you had to sneeze, you should do it into a tissue. If you didn't have a tissue, you should use the crook of your arm.

"But that's vomitous," squealed Norris (one of the two whispering blondes).

These rules were like a lot of other school rules: nobody paid much attention to them.

Some school employees started wearing rubber gloves. Cafeteria servers, who already wore gloves, started wearing surgical masks as well.

Cole lost his appetite. He couldn't stop thinking about hospitals. Flesh being cut open, flesh being sewn up.

How could you tell if you had the flu? The symptoms were listed on the board in every room: Fever. Aches. Chills. Dry cough. What must you do if you had these symptoms? YOU MUST STAY HOME.”
― Sigrid Nunez, Salvation City

“People must learn that shaking another person's hand is not a friendly thing to do. It is not a friendly thing to put other people at risk for infectious diseases."

She and several other people were shown demonstrating the elbow bump, and the auditorium got raucous again.

"We must also consider limiting the use of coins and paper money. For this, too, may cause diseases to spread. We must use technology and human ingenuity to develop ways so that, in their daily public transactions, people touch one another as little as possible. Ideally, we also want to touch as few buttons and handles and knobs as possible.”
― Sigrid Nunez, Salvation City

“By Taking Care of Yourself, You're Taking Care Of Someone Else”
― Oscar Auliq-Ice

“You’re lucky Vale didn’t make you strip completely. You can choose that option, if you prefer. It wouldn’t be the first time.” I grew still, searching his face. He was focussing on his task, his fingers making quick work of my laces. He was talking about my bath with Vale.

“How do you know that wasn’t a completely organic moment of genuine friendship?” I uttered dryly. “Just two people, bonding over hygiene”
― Jane Washington, A City of Whispers

“Mr. McAllister knew what it was like to sit for half an hour or more in someone else's stench, and so he made sure his breath was minty and his farts smelled like roses.”
― Duncan Ralston, Bus Driver Man

“He dumped you in public on the last day of school. You do not need him.”
"Thank you for the unsolicited opinion on my personal life, Would you also like to advise me on the experiences of women in STEM, my wardrobe, and my dental hygiene?”
― Becky Dean, Hearts Overboard

“Mind hygiene is as vital as hand hygiene; both keep our world cleaner.”
― Srinivas Mishra

“Manhattan's middle and upper classes began to wash in their bedrooms. Even in impoverished tenements, families brought out a basin once a week filled it with water to bathe the children on the kitchen floor.”
― James Hamblin, Clean: The New Science of Skin