Given a choice, a lot of us would rather exert our minds over a good book than exert our bodies over a set of dumbbells. Great philosophers over several millennia, however, have encouraged the development of both mind and body. Whether it’s to start or to keep going on a fitness program, may you find inspiration from these quotes by great minds.
The immortal gods have made it so: To achieve excellence, we first must sweat.
Hesiod, 700 B.C.E.
Besides, it is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of person you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will not come of its own accord.
Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.)
Why, even in the process of thinking, in which the use of the body seems to be reduced to a minimum, it is a matter of common knowledge that grave mistakes may often be traced to bad health.
Socrates
Excessive emphasis on athletics produces an excessively uncivilized type, while a purely literary training leaves men indecently soft.
Plato (428-348 B.C.E.)
In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, a person can attain perfection.
Plato
As for athletic training, we assert that it is a form of wisdom.
Philostratus, 220 A.D.
It is not a mind, it is not a body that we are training; it is a man, and he ought not to be divided into two parts.
Michel Montaigne (1533-1592)
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this world.
John Lock, 1693.
Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise, and the weather shall be little regarded. If the body is feeble, the mind will not be strong.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live! Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move my thoughts begin to flow.
Henry David Thoreau, 1851
Here’s a bonus quote from a modern writer:
We like our minds to be knowledgeable, well stocked with information; we should also want our bodies to be similarly endowed. The erudite body is a good body to have.
Colin McGinn, Sport, 2008.