250 Fitness Quotes to Drive Your Motivation and Workouts

1. "The best way to predict the future is to create it."

2. "If you were able to believe in Santa Claus for 8 years, you can believe in yourself for like 5 minutes."

3. "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

4. "One of the greatest moments in life is realizing your body can do today what it couldn't yesterday."

5. "The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do."

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6. "You have a choice. You can throw in the towel or you can use it to wipe the sweat off your face."

7. "The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion." - Arnold Schwarzenegger

8. "Don't be ashamed of trying, every journey has to start somewhere!"

9. "Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn't formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them." - Lee Haney

10. "So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health." - A.J.Materi


11. "You can't be fat and fast, too; so lift, run, diet and work." - Hank Stram

12. "Living a healthy lifestyle will only deprive you of poor health, lethargy, and fat." - Jill Johnson

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

14. "The hardest lift of all is lifting your butt off the couch."

15. "We all make mistakes. it's how we come back from the mistakes that matters."

16. "There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. don't allow yourself to become one of them."

17. "Character is who you are when no one's watching."

18. "Today is a brand new day; a fresh start. Replace any negativity with positivity; think happy thoughts."

19. "A feeble body weakens the mind." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

20. "I didn't have the same fitness or ability as the other girls, so I had to beat them with my mind." - Martina Hingis

21. "Exercise is done against one's wishes and maintained only because the alternative is worse." - George A. Sheehan

22. "Fit is not a destination, it is a way of life."

23. "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

24. "He who enjoys good health is rich, though he knows it not." - Italian Proverb

25. "I think if you exercise, your state of mind - my state of mind - is usually more at ease, ready for more mental challenges. Once I get the physical stuff out of the way it always seems like I have more calmness and better self-esteem." - Stone Gossard

26. "It's not about weight, it's about fitness, and one component of being fit is to have relatively low body fat, because fat is not very efficient, whereas muscle is." - Deborah Bull

27. "Having a rough morning? Place your hand over your heart. Feel that? That's called purpose. You're alive for a reason. don't give up."

28. "Muscles come and go; flab lasts." - Bill Vaughan

29. "The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poor." - William Temple

30. "Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn't going to get the job done." - Jim Rohn

31. "I'm not here to talk."

32. "There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been." - Hugh Jackman

33. "Sweat is just fat crying."

34. "Be stubborn about your goals, but flexible about your methods."

35. "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

36. "You have to push past your perceived limits, push past that point you thought was as far as you can go." - Drew Brees

37. "The pain of today is the victory of tomorrow."

38. "The mind is a powerful force. It can enslave us or empower us. It can plunge us into the depths of misery or take us to the heights of ecstasy. Learn to use the power wisely."

39. "I will sacrifice whatever is necessary to be the best." - J.J. Watt

40. "When it starts to hurt, thats when the set starts."

41. "All great achievements require time." - Maya Angelou

42. "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."

43. "Doubt me, hate me, you're the inspiration I need."

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. "If something stands between you and your success, move it. Never be denied." - Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

46. "Don't give up just because of what someone said. Use that as motivation to push harder."

47. "Sweat is just fat crying."

48. "To keep the body in good health is a duty. Otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear." - Buddha

49. "You have to push past your perceived limits, push past that point you thought was as far as you can go." - Drew Brees

50. "Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure." - Sylvester Stallone


51. "The reason I exercise is for the quality of life I enjoy." - Kenneth H. Cooper

52. "Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." - Mark Twain

53. "He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician." - Thomas Fuller

54. "Your health account, your bank account, they're the same thing. The more you put in, the more you can take out. Exercise is king and nutrition is queen. Together you have a kingdom." - Jack LaLanne

55. "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 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

56. "Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." - Lou Holtz

57. "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

58. "We run for the people who think they cant." - Dick Hoyt

59. "The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning ability to, and bics, meaning withstand tremendous boredom" - Dave Barry

60. "If your dog is fat, you're not getting enough exercise."

61. "Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king." - Isaac Bickerstaff

62. "When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow is disease." - V.L. Allinear

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

64. "The hard part isn't getting your body in shape. The hard part is getting your mind in shape."

65. "Most people give up right before the big break comes--don't let that person be you." - Michael Boyle

66. "I have two doctors, my left leg and my right." - G.M. Trevelyan

67. "Don't stop trying just because you've hit a wall. Progress is progress no matter how small."

68. "The gym doesn't ask silly questions. The gym understands."

69. "No matter who you are. No matter what you do. You absolutely, positively do have the power to change."

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

71. "Don't give up what you want most, for what you want now."

72. "I was never a natural athlete, but I paid my dues in sweat and concentration, and took the time necessary to learn karate and became a world champion." - Chuck Norris

73. "Failure: It can destroy you or it can make you so freakin mad, that you'll work even harder."

74. "It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not."

75. "Exercise is amazing, from the inside out. I feel so alive and have more energy." - Vanessa Hudgens

76. "When times are difficult, remind yourself that no pain comes to you without a purpose."

77. "If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying."

78. "Making excuses burns zero calories per day."

79. "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

80. "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.. Do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

81. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky

82. "Good is not enough if better is possible."

83. "A winner never whines."

84. "You shall gain, but you shall pay with sweat, blood, and vomit." - Pavel Tsatsouline

85. "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right."

86. "Instead of focusing on the weight of your body going down, focus on the weight of your dumbbells going up!"

87. "I don't care how many reps you do, as long as you lift girl weights you'll get a girl body!"

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

89. "Stop wishing, start doing!"

90. "Sore. The most satisfying pain."

91. "Will is a skill." - Jillian Michaels

92. "Do it with passion, or don't do it at all. Without passion, success is impossible."

93. "Commit to be fit."

94. "Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security." - John F. Kennedy

95. "Motivation will almost always beat mere talent." - Norman R. Augustine

96. "Follow your dreams even if it means standing alone."

97. "Do yourself a favor, and realize that there's no technique in the world that will save you. There are no pills, no secrets, no passwords on the path to greatness. you've got to embrace the pain, push the threshold, and feel the suck, and then you've got to muster the courage to go back six times a week." - Jon Gilson

98. "You're going to have to let it hurt. Let it suck. The harder you work, the better you will look. Your appearance isn't parallel to how heavy you lift, it's parallel to how hard you work." - Joe Manganiello

99. "Most of us think we don't have enough time to exercise. What a distorted paradigm! We don't have time not to. We're talking about three to six hours a week - or a minimum of thirty minutes a day, every other day. That hardly seems an inordinate amount of time considering the tremendous benefits in terms of the impact on the other 162 - 165 hours of the week." - Stephen Covey

100. "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


101. "To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life." - William Londen

102. "Chin up beautiful. Your mistakes do not define failure, they define your efforts. We all stumble. But what separates those who succeed from those who fail, is the perseverance to keep moving forward... despite the odds."

103. "No one wakes up in the morning and says, 'I want to gain 150 pounds and I will start right now!" - Tricia Cunningham

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

105. "Never say the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon."

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

107. "I'm so unfamiliar with the gym, I call it James!" - Ellen DeGeneres

108. "It's easier to stay in shape if you never let yourself get out of shape in the first place." - Bill Loguidice

109. "The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion." - Arnold Schwarzenegger

110. "Exercise is the chief source of improvement in our faculties." - Hugh Blair

111. "In training, you listen to your body. In competition, you tell your body to shut up." - Rich Froning Jr.

112. "The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack, toughen the body, and polish the spirit." - Morihei Ueshiba

113. "In training, you listen to your body. In competition, you tell your body to shut up." - Rich Froning Jr.


114. "You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits." - Michael Phelps

115. "I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate." - George Burns

116. "Life is about risking everything for a dream no one can see but you."

117. "It's actually pretty simple. Either you do it or you don't."

118. "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 White

119. "Most people give up right before the big break comes.. don't let that person be you." - Michael Boyle

120. "You are what you do. Not what you say you'll do."

121. "You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted." - Ruth E. Renkl

122. "We do not stop exercising because we grow old - we grow old because we stop exercising." - Dr. Kenneth Cooper

123. "I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more." - Henry Ward Beecher

124. "Want to learn to eat a lot" Here it is: Eat a little. That way, you will be around long enough to eat a lot." - Anthony Robbins

125. "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

126. "First you feel like dying, then you feel reborn."

127. "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

128. "Weight loss doesn't begin in the gym with a dumbbell; it starts in your head with a decision." - Toni Sorenson

129. "The difference between someone who is in shape, and someone who is not in shape, is the individual who is in shape works out even when they do not want to."

130. "You are born weak and die weak, what you are in between those two periods of time is up to you."

131. "The secret of getting ahead is getting started." - Mark Twain

132. "The deadlift also serves as a way to train the mind to do things that are hard." - Mark Rippetoe

133. "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

134. "I could feel my anger dissipating as the miles went by - you can't run and stay mad!" - Kathrine Switzer

135. "Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, vision."

136. "Sometimes a workout isn't about building muscle or health. it's just therapy."

137. "Time and health are two precious assets that we don't recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted." - Denis Waitley

138. "Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." - Michael Jordan

139. "A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood."

140. "Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in the muscles."

141. "Skinny girls look good in clothes; Fit girls look good naked."

142. "Either you run the day, or the day runs you." - Jim Rohn

143. "The physically fit can enjoy their vices." - Lord Percival

144. "No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up!"

145. "Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you."

146. "The finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race."

147. "To keep winning, I have to keep improving." - Craig Alexander

148. "You've got what it takes but it takes everything you've got."

149. "Don't wait. The time will never be just right." - Napoleon Hill

150. "Clear your mind of can't." - Samuel Johnson


151. "I may not be the strongest, I may not be the fastest, but I'll be darned if I'm not trying my hardest."

152. "To keep winning, I have to keep improving." - Craig Alexander

153. "Mistakes prove that you are trying."

154. "Strive for progress, not perfection."

155. "When there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph."

156. "Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far." - Thomas Jefferson

157. "A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools."

158. "Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity." - Oprah Winfrey

159. "Successful people to daily what others do occasionally."

160. "If you ain't p*ssed off for greatness, that just means you're okay with being mediocre." - Ray Lewis

161. "You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."

162. "Run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must, just never give up." - Dean Karnazes

163. "If you ain't pissed off for greatness, that just means you're okay with being mediocre." - Ray Lewis

164. "Energy and persistence conquer all things." - Benjamin Franklin

165. "Fitness needs to be perceived as fun and games or we subconsciously avoid it." - Alan Thicke

166. "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

167. "I'm not telling you it is going to be easy, I'm telling you it is going to be worth it."

168. "The more you eat, the less flavor; the less you eat, the more flavor." - Chinese Proverb

169. "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

170. "The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care." - Sir Philip Sidney

171. "A runner must run with dreams in his heart, not money in his pocket." - Emil Zatopek

172. "Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle." - Christian D. Larson

173. "Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure." - Sylvester Stallone

174. "Fitness is like marriage... you can't cheat on it and expect it to work."

175. "Strength doesn't come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn't."

176. "Exercise is like an addiction. Once you're in it, you feel like your body needs it." - Elsa Pataky

177. "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

178. "Stop waiting for things to happen. Go out and make them happen!"

179. "There's a lot of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it." - Josh Billings

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

181. "Today is another chance. Make yourself proud."

182. "Stamina, speed, strength, skill and spirit. But the greatest of these is spirit." - Ken Doherty

183. "It's never too late to become what you might have been." - George Eliot

184. "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

185. "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." - Jim Rohn

186. "The scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That's it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength or love."

187. "Squat! Because somewhere there's a girl warming up with your max."

188. "Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." - Jim Ryan

189. "Failure is a bruise not a tattoo."

190. "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 (A League of Their Own)

191. "When you have a clear vision of your goal, it's easier to take the first step toward it." - L.L. Cool J

192. "If you dont live for something you'll die for nothing."

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

194. "Life beginns at the end of your comfort zone."

195. "Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food." - Hippocrates

196. "The individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it." - Tricia Cunningham

197. "Personally, I need a high level of physical fitness in order to feel at ease." - Jurgen Klinsmann

198. "Crawling is acceptable. Falling is acceptable. Puking is acceptable. Tears are acceptable. Pain is acceptable. Injury is acceptable. Quitting is unacceptable."

199. "If you're fifty, exercise your mind and body regularly, eat well, and have a general zest for life, you're likely younger - in very real, physical terms - than your neighbor who is forty-four, works in a dead-end job, eats chicken wings twice a day, considers thinking too strenuous, and looks at lifting a beer glass as a reasonable daily workout." - Ken Robinson

200. "Of course it's heavy, that's why they call it weight."

201. "We must appreciate and never underestimate our own inner power." - Noah Galloway

202. "The more you train, the more people there are who are weaker than you."

203. "don't be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed." - LeBron James

204. "You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there."

205. "You want results, then train like it."

206. "Get comfortable with being uncomfortable!" - Jillian Michaels

207. "Never give up, everyone has bad days. Pick yourself up and keep going."

208. "A man is born gentle and weak. At death, he is hard and stiff. Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At death, they are withered and dry. Therefore, the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death, and the gentle and yielding is the disciple of life." - Lao Tzu

209. "When nothing goes right go left go lift."

210. "No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch."

211. "Better sore than sorry."

212. "Fitness is like marriage. You can't cheat on it and expect it to work." - Bonnie Pfiester

213. "You want me to do something... Tell me I can't do it." - Maya Angelou

214. "It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car." - Michael Pollan

215. "By comparing yourself to others, you limit yourself to being only as excellent as they may be and in so doing, prevent yourself from achieving a higher level of accomplishment that you never knew possible. Let others be guides, not goals."

216. "If you're not first, you're last."

217. "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

218. "If you don't do what's best for your body, you're the one who comes up on the short end." - Julius Erving

219. "I know that if I set my mind to something, even if people are saying I can't do it, I will achieve it." - David Beckham

220. "When the going gets tough the tough gets going."

221. "Practice puts brains in your muscles." - Sam Snead

222. "Build your body, build your character."

223. "Obsession is what lazy people call dedication."

224. "The difference between a goal and a dream is a deadline." - Steve Smith

225. "Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

226. "Be proud, but never satisfied."

227. "There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been." - Hugh Jackman

228. "If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail."

229. "Dreams don't work unless you do."

230. "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

231. "Many things aren't equal. But everyone gets the same 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We make time for what we truly want."

232. "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." - Joseph Addison

233. "High expectations are the key to everything."

234. "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." - Jim Rohn

235. "Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway." - Earl Nightingale

236. "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

237. "Fear is what stops you. Courage is what keeps you going."

238. "Just believe in yourself. Even if you don't, pretend that you do and, at some point, you will." - Venus Williams

239. "Don't stop when it hurts, stop when you're done."

240. "Exercise should be regarded as tribute to the heart." - Gene Tunney

241. "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

242. "The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim to high and miss it, but we aim too low and reach it."

243. "There's no secret formula. I lift heavy, work hard, and aim to be the best." - Ronnie Coleman

244. "My temptation is emotional, and resisting will further my needed weight loss and strengthen my character. Furthermore, nothing tastes as good as thin feels." - Stephen Covey

245. "Exercise equals endorphins. Endorphins makes you happy."

246. "A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise." - A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

247. "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

248. "There is no shortcut. Victory lies in overcoming obstacles everyday."

249. "The only bad workout is the one that didn't happen."

250. "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." - Mahatma Gandhi