“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

—  Richard Steele

Tatler (1709-1711), no. 147

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." by Richard Steele?
Richard Steele photo
Richard Steele 13
British politician 1672–1729

Related quotes

Joseph Addison photo

“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 147.
The Tatler (1711–1714)
Variant: A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body
Context: Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.

Joseph Addison photo

“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 147
The Tatler (1711–1714)

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“Exercise of body and exercise of mind are supplementary, and both may be made recreative and educative.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 239

Wilhelm Von Humboldt photo

“True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) edited by Tryon Edwards

Plato photo

“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher
Ben Carson photo

“Reading activates and exercises the mind.
Reading forces the mind to discriminate. From the beginning, readers have to recognize letters printed on the page, make them into words, the words into sentences, and the sentences into concepts.
Reading pushes us to use our imagination and makes us more creatively inclined.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Gilbert Ryle photo

“Contemporary philosophers have exercised themselves with the problem of our knowledge of other minds. Enmeshed in the dogma of the ghost in the machine, they have found it impossible to discover any logically satisfactory evidence warranting one person in believing that there exist minds other than his own. I can witness what your body does, but I cannot witness what your mind does, and my pretensions to infer from what your body does to what your mind does all collapse, since the premises for such inferences are either inadequate or unknowable.”

Gilbert Ryle book The Concept of Mind

Source: The Concept of Mind (1949), Ch. II: Knowing How and Knowing That, (10) Solipsism

Prevale photo

“The body attracts what the mind seduces.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) ​Il corpo attrae ciò che la mente seduce.
Source: prevale.net

François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“What grace is to the body, good sense is to the mind.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

La bonne grâce est au corps ce que le bon sens est à l'esprit.
Maxim 67.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

John Locke photo

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

As quoted in "Hand Book : Caution and Counsels" in The Common School Journal Vol. 5, No. 24 (15 December 1843) by Horace Mann, p. 371
Context: This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in; those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.

Related topics