My favorite quotes and facts about exercise and health.
I read them all, they got me through early morning workouts.
1. By exercise. I’ll tell you one thing, you don’t always have to be on the go. I sit around a lot, I read a lot, and I do watch television. But I also work out for two hours every day of my life, even when I’m on the road. – Jack LaLanne
2. The first wealth is health – Emerson
3. If you don’t do what’s best for your body, you’re the one who comes up on the short end. – Julius Erving
4. Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness. – Earl of Derby
5. Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it. – Unknown
6. A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools. – Unknown
7. Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it. – Plato
8. It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
9. Health is the thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year. – Franklin P. Adams
10. If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. – Eubie Blake
11. Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God and value it next to conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of, a blessing money can’t buy. – Izaak Walton
12. Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live. - JimRohn
13. The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results. – Anthony Robbins
14. The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best. - Thomas Jefferson
15. Time and health are two precious assets that we don’t recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted. - Denis Waitley
16. To get rich never risk your health. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of wealth. - Richard Baker
17. You can set yourself up to be sick, or you can choose to stay well. - Wayne Dyer
18. Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied. - Charles Caleb Colton
19. Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise of health. - James Thomson
20. The body of man is a machine which winds its own springs. – J. O. De La Mettrie
21. A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs. – Joan Welsh
22. Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. – John F. Kennedy
23. Running is one the best solutions to a clear mind. – Sasha Azevedo
24. Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. – Goethe
25. The only disability in life is a bad attitude. – Scott Hamilton
26. It is remarkable how ones wits are sharpened by physical exercise. – Pliny the Younger
27. Exercise is good for your mind, body, and soul. – Susie Michelle Cortright
28. Wholesome exercise in the free air, under the wide sky, is the best medicine for body and spirit. – Sarah Louise Arnold
29. True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are united. – Alexander von Humboldt
30. Self-delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scales. – Paul Sweeney
31. To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100% to your training, diet and mental approach. – Arnold Schwarzenegger
32. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas Edison
33. You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 today and we don’t know where the hell she is. – Ellen Degeneres
34. You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be. – David Viscott
35. The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph! – Marvin Phillips
36. The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince. – Vincent Lombardi
37. The groundwork of all happiness is health. – Leigh Hunt
38. The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win. – Roger Bannister
39. Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. – Elie Wiesel
40. Mental attitude is more important than mental capacity. – Walter Dill Scott
41. My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging. – Hank Aaron
42. Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right! – Henry Ford
43. Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate on your strengths instead of your weaknesses, on your powers instead of your problems. – Paul J. Meyer
44. Everyone has limits on the time they can devote to exercise, and crosstraining simply gives you the best return on your investment balanced fitness with minimum injury risk and maximum fun. – Paula Newby- Fraser
45. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles. – Alex Karras
46. It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up. – Vince Lombardi
47. It’s the lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself. – Muhammad Ali
48. If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. – Bruce Lee
49. Exercise: you don’t have time not to. – Unknown
50. We do not stop exercising because we grow old – we grow old because we stop exercising. – Dr. Kenneth Cooper
51. Eighty percent of success is showing up. – Woody Allen
52. Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, “Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?” – Peter Maher
53. A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. – Paul Dudley
54. You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it. – Charles Buxton
55. Physical fitness can neither be achieved by wishful thinking nor outright purchase. – Joseph Pilates
56. Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits. However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly quickly. – James Rippe, MD
57. To feel “fit as a fiddle,” you must tone down your middle. – Anonymous
58. He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else. – Samuel Johnson
59. The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but instead will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease. – Thomas Edison
60. Living a healthy lifestyle will only deprive you of poor health, lethargy, and fat. – Jill Johnson
61. I like weights. You know where you stand with them. Well, sometimes you’re lying under them, trying not to let them crush you, but you see, you KNOW they’d crush you if they could. There’s honesty. – T. Campbell and Gisele Lagace
62. No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you absolutely, positively do have the power to change. – Bill Phillips
63. Use it or lose it. – Jimmy Connors
64. Nothing lifts me out of a bad mood better than a hard workout on my treadmill. It never fails. To us, exercise is nothing short of a miracle. – Cher
65. People say that losing weight is no walk in the park. When I hear that I think, yeah, that”s the problem. – Chris Adams
66. Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person”s physical, emotional, and mental states. – Carol Welch
67. Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. – Edward Stanley
68. The hardest thing about exercise is to start doing it. Once you are doing exercise regularly, the hardest thing is to stop it. – Erin Gray
69. Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning. – Thomas Jefferson
70. Exercise is done against one’s wishes and maintained only because the
alternative is worse. – George Sheehan
71. Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise, of health. – James Thompson
72. And I believe that the best buy in public health today must be a combination of regular physical exercise and a healthy diet. – Julie Bishop
73. Never hurry. Take plenty of exercise. Always be cheerful. Take all the sleep you need. You may expect to be well. – James Freeman Clarke
74. Take care of your body, then the rest will automatically become stronger. – Chuang Tzu
75. Health and good estate of body are above all gold, and a strong body above infinite wealth. – Ecclesiasticus 30:15
76. The greatest wealth is health. – Virgil
77. Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. – World Health Organization, 1948
78. If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want. – Elbert Hubbard
79. Sickness comes on horseback but departs on foot. – Dutch Proverb
80. When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no “I’ll start tomorrow.” Tomorrow is disease. – V.L. Allinear
81. A healthy body is the guest-chamber of the soul; a sick, its prison. -Francis Bacon
82. Hear your heart. Heart your health. – Faith Seehill
83. Just because you’re not sick doesn’t mean you’re healthy. – Author Unknown
84. Without health, there is no point. To anything. – Everett Mámor
85. Happiness lies, first of all, in health. – George William Curtis
86. So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health. – A.J. Reb Materi
87. In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties. – Henri- Frederic Amiel
88. The body is like a piano, and happiness is like music. It is needful to have the instrument in good order. – Beecher
89. My goal has always been to help people help themselves. Your body is your most priceless possession; you’ve go to take care of it! – Jack Lalanne
90. The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character. – Arnold Schwarzenegger
91. Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. – Lance Armstrong
92. No matter how good you get you can always get better and that’s the exciting part. – Tiger Woods
93. I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat. – Michael Jordan
94. I wouldn’t say anything is impossible. I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and put the work and time into it. – Michael Phelps
95. No pain, no gain. – Athletic Proverb
96. Run hard, be strong, think big! – Percy Cerutty
97. A lot of people run a race to see who’s the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts. – Steve Prefontaine
98. Workouts are like brushing my teeth; I don’t think about them, I just do them. The decision has already been made. – Patti Sue Plumer, U.S. Olympian
99. If someone says, ‘Hey, I ran 100 miles this week. How far did you run?’ ignore him! What the hell difference does it make?…. The magic is in the man, not the 100 miles. – Bill Bowerman
100. The body does not want you to do this. As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong. You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy…It is not age; it is not diet. It is the will to succeed. – Jacqueline Gareau, 1980 Boston Marathon champ
101. Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. – Edward Stanley
102. If it weren’t for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn’t get any exercise at all. – Joey Adams
103. Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it. – Plato
104. Fitness – if it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body. – Cher
105. There is a necessity for a regulating discipline of exercise that, whilst evoking the human energies, will not suffer them to be wasted. – Thomas de Quincey
106. The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck! – Author Unknown
107. Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states. – Carol Welch
108. A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs. – Joan Welsh
109. The word aerobics came about when the gym instructors got together and said, “If we’re going to charge $10 an hour, we can’t call it jumping up and down.” – Rita Rudner
110. I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I’m doing. – Marsha Doble
111. A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise. – A.A. Milne
112. I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise. – Chauncey Depew, also sometimes attributed in slightly different wording to Mark Twain
113. I really don’t think I need buns of steel. I’d be happy with buns of cinnamon. – Ellen DeGeneres
114. Commit to be fit. – Author Unknown
115. It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
116. My idea of exercise is a good brisk sit. – Phyllis Diller
117. Aerobics: a series of strenuous exercises which help convert fats, sugars, and starches into aches, pains, and cramps. – Author Unknown
118. Any workout which does not involve a certain minimum of danger or responsibility does not improve the body – it just wears it out. – Norman Mailer
119. Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate. ~- Author Unknown
120. An hour of basketball feels like 15 minutes. An hour on a treadmill feels like a weekend in traffic school. – David Walters
121. I consider exercise vulgar. It makes people smell. – Alec Yuill Thornton
122.
Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught,
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
-John Dryden
123. People say that losing weight is no walk in the park. When I hear that I think, yeah, that’s the problem. – Chris Adams
124. If the poor overweight jogger only knew how far he had to run to work off the calories in a crust of bread he might find it better in terms of pound per mile to go to a massage parlor. – Christiaan Barnard
125. I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I’m damned if I’m going to use up mine running up and down a street. – Neil Armstrong on jogging, in an interview with Walter Cronkite
126. If your dog is fat, you’re not getting enough exercise. – Author Unknown
127. I am pushing sixty. That is enough exercise for me. – Mark Twain
128. Exercise is the yuppie version of bulimia. - Barbara Ehrenreich
129. Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. – Robert M. Hutchins
