Top Health and Fitness Quotes
Less is more in my book. Sometimes in a world full of massive information overload we need to step back and find more wisdom from within.
If you have seen my attempts at daily wisdom and wit on my Facebook status (as I know no one gives $0.02 about where I am and what I am really doing), I try to find quotes to inspire people to think about a deeper message, and apply to their life. Little words that pack a bigger punch.
So here are many of the top health and fitness quotes out there for you to read, ponder over and spread to others as well. Note that even without many of the modern advances in understanding through science/medicine, how true some of these quotes were from long ago.
You may agree with some, disagree with others, and others may just be funny…but if they make you think, then they have done their job. Enjoy!
- “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.” ~ A.J.Materi
- “To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
- “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” ~ Hippocrates
- “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
- “He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.” ~ Thomas Fuller
- “Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.” ~ Isaac Bickerstaff
- “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs.” ~ Joan Welsh
- “The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.” ~ Sir Philip Sidney
- “He who enjoys good health is rich, though he knows it not.” ~ Italian Proverb
- “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” ~ Mark Twain
- “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “The best of all medicines is resting and fasting” ~ Benjamin Franklin
- “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” ~ Edward Stanley
- “Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” ~ Plato
- “The greatest wealth is health.” ~ Virgil
- To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” ~ Buddha
- “Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “An hour of basketball feels like 15 minutes. An hour on a treadmill feels like a weekend in traffic school.” ~ David Walters
- “Many so-called spiritual people, they overeat, drink too much, they smoke and don’t exercise. But they do go to church every week and pray ‘Please help my arthritis. Please help me bring up my strength, make me young again.’” ~ Jack LaLanne
- “To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.” ~ William Londen
- “As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” ~ Buddy Hackett
- “The more you eat, the less flavor; the less you eat, the more flavor.” ~ Chinese Proverb
- “As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.” ~ Joan Gussow
- “If you are surprised at the number of our maladies, count our cooks.” ~ Seneca
- “Most diseases are the result of medication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a beneficiant and warning symptom on the part of Nature.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
- “The physically fit can enjoy their vices.” ~ Lord Percival
- “In general, mankind, since the improvement in cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
- “Most of the food allergies die under garlic and onion.” ~ Martin H. Fischer
- “I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
- “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.” ~ Michael Pollan
- “Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing” ~ Voltaire
- “The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning “ability to,” and bics, meaning “withstand tremendous boredom” ~ Dave Barry
- “The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.” ~ Thomas Edison
- “The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of diseases” ~ Edward Jenner
- “There’s lots of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven’t the time to enjoy it. ” ~Josh Billings
- “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.” ~ Hippocrates
- “I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times.” ~ Bruce Lee
- “Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the truth, bending over backward, lying down on the job, sidestepping responsibility and pushing their luck.” ~ Author Unknown
If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy my own personal quotes on Trainer Tells All about Health and Fitness here.
References: Thanks given to sites like Think Exist, Brainy Quote, and Quote Garden for making many of these available.
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Great quotes all. A lot of people out there have a tendency to make eating and exercise seem like a gigantic minefield. These quotes just go to show that common sense throughout time is usually better than the latest “breakthrough.”
As your site illustrates, what to do is really not all that complicated. How what you do acts on your body is tremendously complex and not well understood, but people have been using things like intermittent fasting since really the dawn of time.
Instead of always running after the newest thing, I enjoy seeing the time tested wisdom you have brought together.
Mike OD Reply:
So true John. All those breakthroughs are really eventually going to come full circle back to the simplest things we already know that are true. Keeping it simple is the best way for anyone to make their health and results last over a lifetime. Complicated strategies make for up and down weight gain (as people go on and burn off diets) and a OCD lifestyle revolved around eating. Not something that life should really be about. Funny how there are people in countries in small towns living healthy lives and no access to all the information we do.
Thanks for posting the quotes. Some really good ones!
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If man made it, don’t eat it!- Jack Lalanne
Mike OD Reply:
Jack is a smart man indeed! If only people listened 50 years ago to him.
“The best of all medicines is resting and fasting”
Amen to that. My immune system has been iron tough since I started fasting back in September.
Dan
Mike OD Reply:
Funny how much wisdom was known long ago, yet drowned out nowadays. Getting back to “allowing” the body to heal/repair itself is certainly the best plan out there.
[...] Top health and fitness quotes [...]
“He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.” ~ Thomas Fuller
As a physician, I pride myself at living this quote.
Great list!
Mike OD Reply:
I wish all physicians were out there with that motto as well!
“Don’t make the mistake of going outside at midnight to try and get a suntan,and then spend hundreds of dollars on suntanning lotions thinking that the lotions will solve your problem.”
-Mike Mentzer.
” I’m old enough to know that you can’t change the thinking of fools, but young enough (and foolish enough) to keep on trying.”
- Arthur Jones.
Mike OD Reply:
I like that Arthur Jones one!
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Dynamic living = god given equipment + principles of success x propper self image
Dynamic living is that kind of life that is full of joy and happiness all the time, free of fear and worry, continualy in the process of accomplishing worthwile goals and is totally well adjusted in lifes six major areas inc business, home, social, physical, mental, spiritual
Great quotes Mike! You have put a lot of work into this!
[...] Health and Fitness Quotes [...]
All great quotes! Found a couple of favorites, especially Buddy Hackett’s
Also liked:
“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” ~ Mark Twain…So True!
very nice quotations some r more difficults and some r more easy.But i like all quotations keep it up
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very nice quotes
i copy this quote ““Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” ~ Plato”
Hope not a problem
Thanks for this list Mike!
I’m a HUGE advocate for PREVENTION over PRESCRIPTION which is what a lot of these quotes point to.
Take the time NOW to set yourself up for success LATER.
Health should be a number one priority for EVERYBODY regardless of what you do! It’s so true that, “When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot become manifest, strength cannot be exerted, wealth is useless, and reason is powerless.” ~ Herophiles
Let’s keep our priorities straight.
This is the first time I saw this quote which is unfortunately far too common in today’s society: “Many so-called spiritual people, they overeat, drink too much, they smoke and don’t exercise. But they do go to church every week and pray ‘Please help my arthritis. Please help me bring up my strength, make me young again.’” ~ Jack LaLanne
THIS is my all time favorite: “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs.” ~ Joan Welsh
Thanks again!