If you’re feeling sluggish and burned out after a few weeks of diet and exercise, you clearly need a boost. Here are 75 of the most motivational fitness quotes ever to get your mind back in shape!
1. “You want me to do something… tell me I can’t do it.” – Maya Angelou
2. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” – Mahatma Gandhi
3. “Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” – Norman R. Augustine
4. “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” – Benjamin Franklin
5. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz
7. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Ryan
8. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
9. “It’s never too late to become what you might have been.” – George Eliot
10. “Clear your mind of can’t.” – Samuel Johnson
11. “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
12. “If you always put limits 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
13. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
14. “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
15. “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.” – Thomas Jefferson
16. “A muscle is like a car. If you want it to run well early in the morning, you have to warm it up.” – Florence Griffith Joyner
17. “Exercise is like an addiction. Once you’re in it, you feel like your body needs it.” – Elsa Pataky
18. “And though she be but little, she is fierce.” – Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
19. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn
20. “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
21. “Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them—a desire, a dream, a vision.” – Muhammad Ali
22. “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” – Beverly Sills
23. “Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t, pretend that you do and, at some point, you will.” – Venus Williams
24. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
25. “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable!” – Jillian Michaels
26. “No one wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I want to gain 150 pounds and I will start right now!’ ” – Tricia Cunningham
27. “Only the weak attempts to accomplish what he knows he can already achieve.” – Stella Juarez
28. “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
29. “Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you” – Ovid
30. “Belief triggers the power to do” – David Schwartz
31. “Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” – Marilyn vos Savant
32. “The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers.” – Brian Tracy
33. “You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.” – Ruth E. Renkl
34. “I’d rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate.” – George Burns
35. “No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop
36. “Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.” – Oprah Winfrey
37. “Dieting is the only game where you win when you lose!” – Karl Lagerfeld
38. “Your imagination is your preview to life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein
39. “A fit, healthy body– that is the best fashion statement.” – Jess C. Scott
40. “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs.” – Joan Welsh
41. “Living a healthy lifestyle will only deprive you of poor health, lethargy, and fat.” – Jill Johnson
42. “To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” – Buddha
43. “Every living cell in your body is made from the food you eat. If you consistently eat junk food then you’ll have a junk body.” – Jeanette Jenkins
44. “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
45. “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” – Edward Stanley
46. “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn
47. “We do not stop exercising because we grow old – we grow old because we stop exercising.” – Dr. Kenneth Cooper
48. “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” – Stephen Covey
49. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
50. “It is exercise alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in vigor.” – Cicero
51. “If a man achieves victory over this body, who in the world can exercise power over him? He who rules himself rules over the whole world.” – Vinoba Bhave
52. “Fitness needs to be perceived as fun and games or we subconsciously avoid it.” – Alan Thicke
53. “Exercise should be regarded as tribute to the heart.” – Gene Tunney
54. “Our children are obese, either have or being threatened by diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and not socially adjusting properly to others because of a lack of fitness.” – Richard Simmons
55. “Fitness is like marriage. You can’t cheat on it and expect it to work.” – Bonnie Pfiester
56. “Stamina, speed, strength, skill and spirit. But the greatest of these is spirit.” – Ken Doherty
57. “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.” – A.J.Materi
58. “The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.” – Sir Philip Sidney
59. “He who enjoys good health is rich, though he knows it not.” – Italian Proverb
60. “Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” – Plato
61. “The more you eat, the less flavor; the less you eat, the more flavor.” – Chinese Proverb
62. “Most diseases are the result of medication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a beneficent and warning symptom on the part of Nature.” – Elbert Hubbard
63. “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.” – Michael Pollan
64. “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
65. “Physical fitness can neither be achieved by wishful thinking nor outright purchase.” – Joseph Pilates
66. “Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states.” – Carol Welch
67. “A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.” – A.A. Milne
68. “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
69. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” – Earl Nightingale
70. “Of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” – Tom Hanks
71. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill
72. “Our life is what our thoughts make it.” – Marc Antonius
73. “We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
74. “The real risk is doing NOTHING.” – Denis Whitley
75. “He who conquers others is strong, he who conquers himself is mighty.” – Lao Tsu