Exercise Quotes

Exercise should be regarded as tribute to the heart.  ~Gene Tunney


Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.  ~Edward Stanley


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


Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.  ~Plato


Physical fitness can neither be achieved by wishful thinking nor outright purchase.  ~Joseph Pilates


I see exercise taking this perverted detour. The original intention of exercise was to heal and maintain health. Now I see it as having nothing to do with health. I see most exercises based on looking good. They actually make you less healthy. You overdevelop the obvious muscles. You take drugs to enhance that. You ignore the rest, and you become more out of balance. ~Bryan Kest


Fitness - if it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body.  ~Cher


There are really only two requirements when it comes to exercise.  One is that you do it.  The other is that you continue to do it.  ~The New Glucose Revolution for Diabetes by Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell, Stephen Colagiuri, Alan W. Barclay


I consider my refusal to go to the gym today as resistance training. ~Author Unknown


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


The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck!  ~Author Unknown


Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person's physical, emotional, and mental states.  ~Carol Welch


A man's health can be judged by which he takes two at a time - pills or stairs.  ~Joan Welsh


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


I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing.  ~Marsha Doble


A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.  ~A.A. Milne


The only exercise I take is acting as pall-bearer to my friends who have indulged in strenuous exercise!  ~Author unknown, quoted in "Play Safe in Taking Physical Exercise" by Royal S. Copeland, 1926  (Thanks, Garson O'Toole of quoteinvestigator.com!)


I really don't think I need buns of steel.  I'd be happy with buns of cinnamon.  ~Ellen DeGeneres


Commit to be fit.  ~Author Unknown




It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor.  ~Marcus Tullius Cicero


The only valid excuse for not exercising is paralysis.  ~Moira Nordholt, feelgoodguru.com


My idea of exercise is a good brisk sit.  ~Phyllis Diller


It wasn't until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can't be as bad as that workout. ~Henry Rollins


A man may take as much exercise in walking a mile up and down stairs, as in ten on level ground. ~Benjamin Franklin


Aerobics:  a series of strenuous exercises which help convert fats, sugars, and starches into aches, pains, and cramps.  ~Author Unknown


Every leap and spring aids in renewing the body, and therefore in giving greater hilarity to the spirit, and superior vigor to the intellect. Every motion helps to construct a fortification against disease, and to render the body more impregnable against its attacks. Those prodigious leaps over the vaulting horse, how they kick hereditary gout out of the toes. Those swift somersaults, with their quick and deep breathings, are ejecting bronchitis, asthma, and phthisis from the throat and lungs. On yonder pendent rope consumption is hung up like a malefactor, as he is. Legions of blue devils are impaled on those parallel bars. Dyspepsia lost hold of its victim when he mounted the flying horse, and has never since been able to regain her accursed throne, and live by gnawing the vitals. There goes a flock of nervous distempers, headache and ticdoloreux and St. Anthony's fire; there they fly out the window, seeking some stall-fed alderman, or fat millionaire, or aristocratic old lady. Rheumatism and cramps and spasms sit coiled up and chattering in the corners of the room like Satanic imps, as they are, the strong muscles of the athletes having shaken them off as the lion shakes the dew drops from his mane. The balancing-pole shakes lumbago out of the back. Pleurisy and apoplexy and fever and paralysis and death hover round; they look into the windows of this hall, but finding brains and lungs and hearts all defiant of their power, they go away in quest of some lazy cit, some guszling drone, some bloated epicure at his late supper, to fasten their fangs upon him. ~Horace Mann (1796–1859)  [Wording slightly altered. 'Blue devils' refers to depression. Dr. Drugger, in 1865, called Mann's remarks idealistic, saying it's "muscular poetry—rather more poetry than truth." Drugger has been described as cherishing a "philosophico-crotchety contempt for gymnastics." —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]


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


The chest so exercis'd improves its strength;
And quick vibrations thro' the bowels drive
The restless blood, which in unactive days
Would loiter else thro' unelastic tubes.
Deem it not trifling while I recommend
What posture suits: To stand and sit by turns,
As nature prompts, is best. But o'er your leaves
To lean for ever, cramps the vital parts,
And robs the fine machinery of its play.
~John Armstrong (1709–1779), The Art of Preserving Health, 1744  [Armstrong, a physician, was known as "The Poet of Health." —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]  #exercise  #standingdesk


Exercise is a dirty word.  Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate.  ~Author Unknown


An hour of basketball feels like 15 minutes.  An hour on a treadmill feels like a weekend in traffic school.  ~David Walters


Exercise relieves stress. Nothing relieves exercise. ~Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo video game) written by Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka, and Toshihiro Kawabata


I consider exercise vulgar.  It makes people smell.  ~Alec Yuill Thornton


Many people lose sight of the ultimate purpose of exercise, which is to improve overall health and fitness. They become lost in the mindless patterns of the gym and habitually grind out set after set in strainful workouts. While it's important to build strength and increase muscle tone, that is simply not enough.... A human body is meant for all kinds of movements, with overall performance measured in more than just pounds lifted or miles traveled.
What does it mean to be really fit? For me, I wanted to be more than just strong. I wanted to be agile, flexible, coordinated, and to have good balance—qualities of movement I associate with my youth when I was dancing and playing sports.
~Jonathan Urla, Yogilates: Integrating Yoga and Pilates for Complete Fitness, Strength, and Flexibility, "Introduction," 2002


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


People say that losing weight is no walk in the park.  When I hear that I think, yeah, that's the problem.  ~Chris Adams


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


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


If your dog is fat, you're not getting enough exercise.  ~Author Unknown


You can cheat on your boyfriend or girlfriend but not on your workout.  ~Author Unknown


I am pushing sixty.  That is enough exercise for me.  ~Mark Twain


Exercise is the yuppie version of bulimia.  ~Barbara Ehrenreich


Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes.  ~Robert M. Hutchins