"It is exercise alone that supports the spirit, and keeps the mind in vigor."
- Cicero, 65 BCE

"The easiest way to preserve health and with greater profit than all other measures put together is to exercise well."
- Cristobal Mendez, Exercise Book, 1553

"Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind."
- Leonardo da Vinci

“The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.”
- Edith Södergran

"Vigor (viriya) is the state of a hero (vira). Its characteristic is exertion. Its function is to support or consolidate related mental qualities. It is manifested as non-collapse. Because of the saying, "Stirred, one strives wisely," its proximate cause is what stirs the heart. When initiated properly, it should be seen as the root of all attainments."
- Visuddhimagga XIV, 137, A Buddhist Scripture

"To resist the frigidity of old age, one must combine the body, the mind, and the heart. And to keep these in parallel vigor one must exercise, study, and love."
- Alan Bleasdale

"What is the power of vigor? Here, monks, a practitioner lives with energy set upon the abandoning of everything unwholesome and the acquiring of everything wholesome; one is steadfast and strong in effort, not shirking one's task in regard to wholesome qualities."
- Anguttara Nikaya V.92, A Buddhist Scripture

“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”
- Susan Sontag

“A strong life force can be seen in physical vitality, courage, competent judgment, self-mastery, sexual vigor, and the realization of each person’s unique talents and purpose in life. To maintain a powerful life force, forget yourself, forget about living and dying, and bring your full attention into this moment.”
- H.E. Davey, Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation

"The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor."
- Christian Nestell Bovee

"The practitioner who delights in vigilance
And fears negligence
Advances like a fire,
Burning fetters subtle and gross."
- Dhammapada 31, A Buddhist Scripture

"The study of motivation goes back to the Greeks. Their sports were essential to their education. They saw in sports the integration of body, mind and soul, the creation of beauty, the mastering of athletics, and the challenge of competition. A French sociologist points this out. "Sports," he wrote, was part of the education of the citizen. He was expected to engage in exercise for a whole series of reasons that had to do with the shaping of the citizen; the relation between moral good and physical good; and the growth of a person."
- George Sheehan, M.S., Personal Best, 1989, p 29

“To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.”
- John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice

"To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practice with vigor is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude."
- Confucius

“I watched bulls bred to cows, watched mares foal, I saw life come from the egg and the multiplicative wonders of mudholes and ponds, the jell and slime of life shimmering in gravid expectation. Everywhere I looked, life sprang from something not life, insects unfolded from sacs on the surface of still waters and were instantly on prowl for their dinner, everything that came into being knew at once what to do and did it, unastonished that it was what it was, unimpressed by where it was, the great earth heaving up bloodied newborns from every pore, every cell, bearing the variousness of itself from every conceivable substance which it contained in itself, sprouting life that flew or waved in the wind or blew from the mountains or stuck to the damp black underside of rocks, or swam or suckled or bellowed or silently separated in two.”
- E.L. Doctorow, Lives of the Poets: A Novella and Six Stories

"The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny."
- Pierre Joseph Proudhon

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique."
- Martha Graham

Nine Essentials for Lifelong Vitality

"1. Moving with Attention, Wake Up to Life, Mindful Movements
2. The Learning Switch, Bring in the New, Lifelong learning, Retraining
3. Subtlety, Experience the Power of Gentleness
4. Variation, Enjoy Abundant Possibilities
5. Taking Your Time, Slowing Down, Not Rushing, Luxuriate in the Richness of Feeling
6. Enthusiasm, Turn the Small into the Great
7. Flexible Goals, Make the Impossible Possible
8. Imagination and Dreams, Create Your Life
9. Awareness, Cultivating Mindfulness, Thrive with True Knowledge"

"Better than one hundred years lived
Lazy and lacking in vigor
Is one day lived
With vigor and exertion.
- Dhammapada 108, A Buddhist Scripture

"Vitality--personal energy, engagement and motivation--is an important part of personal happiness and accomplishment of your goals in life. According to Bob Smith in "Yoga for a New Age," Hatha yoga is the best style of yoga for building vitality. The poses of Hatha yoga balance energies and encourage a relaxation that is necessary to improved personal energy."
- Jason Brick

"The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Strength Training for Persons Over 50 Years of Age

"Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance."
- Horace

"We derive our vitality from our store of madness."
- Emile M. Cioran

"True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are united."
- Alexander von Humboldt

"The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it."
- Alfred North Whitehead

"Don't be disquieted in time of adversity. Be firm with dignity and self-reliant with vigor."
- Madame Chaing Kai-Shek

“They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.”
- Eric Hoffer

"Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits. However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly quickly."
- James Rippe, M.D.

Fingers, Hands, Touching, Feeling, Somatics, Haptics: Quotations, Bibliography, Notes

"I want to keep my attractiveness as long as I can. It has to do with vitality and energy and interest."
- Jacqueline Bisset

"Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigor and power of the mind, displaying itself from within."
- Ralph Cudworth

"The characteristic of vigor is strengthening and support. As an old house stands when strengthened by new pillars, so, when strengthened by vigor, wholesome states do not fall away or deteriorate."
- Atthasalini I, part IV; A Buddhist Scripture

"Vigor is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly adds to our power and enlarges our field of action."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"From time to time someone devoted to the higher training should give attention to three things: concentration, energetic effort, and equanimity. In giving regular attention to each of these, then one's mind will become pliant, workable, lucid, and wieldy, and it will be well concentrated to overcome the taints."
- Anguttara Nikaya III.42, Buddhist Scripture

Recommended Reading:

The Art of Happiness. By Epicurus. Translation and commentary by George K. Strodach. Penguin Classics, 2012. 272 pages.

The Conquest of Happiness By Bertrand Russell. Introduction by Daniel Dennett. Liveright, 1930, 2013. 224 pages.

Epicurean and Hedonistic Philosophy: Bibliography, Resources, Quotations, Information

Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction By Catherine Wilson. Oxford University Press, 2016. 144 pages.

The Five Senses and Pleasure

Happiness: A Philosopher's Guide. By Frederic Lenoir. Melville House, 2015. 208 pages.

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. By Jonathan Haidt. Basic Books, 2006. 320 pages.

Happiness: A History By Darrin M. McMahon. Grove Press, 2006. 526 pages.

Hedonism: Bibliography, Links, Quotations, Resources, Notes by Mike Garofalo

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want By Sonja Lyubomirsky. Penguin Books, 2008. 384 pages.

How to Live a Good Life: Advice from Wise Persons

Life's Little Instruction Book By H. Jackson Brown, Jr. Thomas Nelson, Revised edition, 2000. 160 pages.

Nicomachean Ethics By Aristotle. Translated by Christopher Rowe. Commentary and notes by Sarah Broadie. Oxford University Press, 2002. 480 pages.

On Desire: Why We Want What We Want By William B. Irvine. Oxford University Press, 2006. 322 pages.

Pleasures, Desires and Enjoyment: Quotations, Poems, Sayings

Somaesthetics: Body-Mind Practices and Theories

Time and the Art of Living By Robert Grudin. Mariner Books, 1997. Index, 250 pages. ISBN: 978039689814. VSCL.

Epicureanism: Bibliography, Links, Quotations, Resources, Notes by Mike Garofalo

Virtues and a Good Life

Cloud Hands Blog. By Michael P. Garofalo. Over 2,400 indexed posts on well being, philosophy, somaesthetics, taijiquan, qigong, walking, gardening, yoga, Taoism, hedonism, and spirituality. Over 700,000 page views as of 6/1/2016.

Advice Beauty Bibliography Blog Body-Mind Broad Minded Cheerfulness

Contemplation Desires Dharmapada Sutra Education Epicureanism Equanimity Ethics

Feeling Fitness Five Senses Friendship Gardening Generosity Good Life

Happiness Hedonism Hospitality Independence Index Kindness Learning Lifestyle Links

Meditation Memory Mindfulness Moderation Neo-Paganism Open Minded Paramitas

Patience Philosophy Play Pleasures Qigong Reading Secular Self-Reliance

Sensory Pleasures Simplicity Solitude Somaesthetics Spirituality Stoicism Taijiquan

Tao Te Ching Thinking Tolerance Touching Tranquility Vigor Virtues Vision Vitality

Walking Willpower Wisdom Wonder Yoga Zen Precepts