Quotes about muscle

A collection of quotes on the topic of muscle, likeness, use, man.

Quotes about muscle

“Remember the mind is your best muscle …BIG ARMS can move rocks, but BIG WORDS can move mountains… Ride the brain train for success….”

Sylvester Stallone (1946) American actor, screenwriter, and film director

http://twitter.com/TheSlyStallone/status/27158992333

Mountain, Success, Training

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

From a speech (1933)

Business, Time, Country

“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Life, War, People, World

“It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which the mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Way, Feeling, Parting

“This is nihilism; or this is truth. He has to push past his boundaries. There is the outline of a body, distinct, separate, its integrity an illusion, a tragic deception, because un seen there is a slit between the legs, and he has to push into it. There is never a real privacy of the body that can coexist withe intercourse: with being entered. The vagina itself is muscled and the muscles have to be pushed apart. The thrusting is persistent invasion. She is opened up, split down the center. She is occupied - physically, internally, in her privacy.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter 7, "Occupation/Collaboration"

Truth, Past

“The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Speed

“If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the believing-muscles of your mind, and then you'll be so weak you won't be able to believe the simplest true things.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“Building muscle also increases testosterone, and when you've been in a boy band as long as I have, you can never get enough of that!”

Nick Carter (1980) singer from the United States

Boy

“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Exercises

“Since everything that lives is obliged to expend and receive life, there is an exchange of modifications between the living creature and its environment.
And yet, once that vital necessity is satisfied, our species—a positively strange species—thinks it must create for itself other needs and tasks besides that of preserving life. … Whatever may be the origin or cause of this curious deviation, the human species is engaged in an immense adventure, an adventure whose objective and end it does not know. …
The same senses, the same muscles, the same limbs—more, the same types of signs, the same instruments of exchange, the same languages, the same modes of logic—enter into the most indispensable acts of our lives, as they figure into the most gratuitous. …
In short, man has not two sets of tools, he has only one, and this one set must serve him for the preservation of his life and his physiological rhythm, and expend itself at other times on illusions and on the labours of our great adventure. …
The same muscles and nerves produce walking as well as dancing, exactly as our linguistic faculty enables us to express our needs and ideas, while the same words and forms can be combined to produce works of poetry. A single mechanism is employed in both cases for two entirely different purposes.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), pp. 158-159

Life, Idea, Thinking, Sense

“It is the pain, it is the pain, endures.
Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.
Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.”

William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet

"Villanelle" (1928), line 1; cited from John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) p. 33.
The Complete Poems

Pain, Beauty

“Last but not least, I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing that I’ve ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn’t mean you’re going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out looking for white folks, although you’d be within your rights—I mean, you’d be justified; but that would be illegal and we don’t do anything illegal. If the white man doesn’t want the black man buying rifles and shotguns, then let the government do its job. […] If he’s not going to do his job in running the government and providing you and me with the protection that our taxes are supposed to be for, since he spends all those billions for his defense budget, he certainly can’t begrudge you and me spending $12 or $15 for a single-shot, or double-action. I hope you understand. Don’t go out shooting people, but any time—brothers and sisters, and especially the men in this audience; some of you wearing Congressional Medals of Honor, with shoulders this wide, chests this big, muscles that big—any time you and I sit around and read where they bomb a church and murder in cold blood, not some grownups, but four little girls while they were praying to the same God the white man taught them to pray to, and you and I see the government go down and can’t find who did it.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Men, God, People, Hope

“I work a lot but don't seem to finish. That is, I hope what I am doing means something because I don't know what I am doing. It's strange and terrible but I feel calm. Today I worked non-stop for six hours on a sculpture and I don't know what the result is... Planes upon planes, sections of muscles, of a face and then? And the total effect? Does what I create live? Where will I end up?”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

Boccioni's quote, from an undated letter to Gino Severini (probably July or August 1912, or November); as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008.
1912

Hope, Feeling

“It's not about how you look, it's about how you feel. I can do more with ease and grace now at 52 than I could when I was 20. I can ride my bike 60 miles, I can handle stress, I have good muscle tone. That's what it's about. Not about being thin but about being healthy”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Telephone interview quoted by Carol Krucoff. Why Jane's Fonda Exercise;Stress-Busting Workouts and Other News About Staying in Shape. Washington Post, 13 March 1990

Feeling

“Thought
is a flower from other worlds, a tale
that is torn in each written word.
……………I go outdoors
to give rest
to the soul’s tired muscles.”

Juan Antonio Villacañas (1922–2001) Spanish poet, essayist and critic

“Literaturaliae”, from Theme of My Biography (2000)

World, Soul, Flowers

“When a child is born its sense-organs are brought in contact with the outer world. The waves of sound, heat, and light beat upon its feeble body, its sensitive nerve-fibres quiver, the muscles contract and relax in obedience: a gasp, a breath, and in this act a marvelous little engine, of inconceivable delicacy and complexity of construction, unlike any on earth, is hitched to the wheel-work of the Universe.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

World, Sense, Light, Universe

“How grievously I was disappointed! …I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind and any other principle of order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person that began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when endeavored to explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of bones and muscles; and the bones he would say, are hard and have ligaments which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which also have a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I an sitting here in a curved posture… and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia… if they had been guided only by their idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler part… to undergo any punishment that the State inflicts.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Disappointment, Idea, Thinking, Water

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

War is a racket (1935) <br class="br">Source: Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (November, 1935), p. 8. Quoted in 'I Might Have Given Al Capone a Few Hints' https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/10/opinion/l-i-might-have-given-al-capone-a-few-hints-023587.html, The New York Times, September 10, 1987.

Way, Boy, Business, Light

“A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive – a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable – other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement. This is a matter which has been too little considered, both by moralists and by social reformers. The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand, are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the permitted outlets of the love of excitement; the seriousness, however, in their minds, is that of Sin. Dance halls, cinemas, this age of jazz, are all, if we may believe our ears, gateways to Hell, and we should be better employed sitting at home contemplating our sins. I find myself unable to be in entire agreement with the grave men who utter these warnings. The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? And is it not, perhaps, a drug which – like opium – has to be taken in continually stronger doses to produce the desired effect? Is it not to be feared that, beginning with the wickedness of the cinema, we should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such condemnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Love, Men, War, Age

“You will perhaps say that the sinews and muscles of a bird are incomparably more powerful than those of a man… But the reply to this is that such great strength gives it a reserve of power beyond what it ordinarily uses…”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

Bird

“The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Statement inspired by the work of British sculptor Barbara Hepworth, quoted in The Christian Science Monitor (18 Jun 1964)
Context: The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law. Delicate line gathers the body's total strength in a bold balance. Shall my soul meet so severe a curve, journeying on its way to form?

Law

“The teachers of the old school, prepared according to the principles of metaphysical philosophy, understood the ideas of certain men regarded as authorities, and moved the muscles of speech in talking of them, and the muscles of the eye in reading their theories. Our scientific teachers, instead, are familiar with certain instruments and know how to move the muscles of the hand and arm in order to use these instruments; besides this, they have an intellectual preparation which consists of a series of typical tests, which they have, in a barren and mechanical way, learned how to apply.
The difference is not substantial, for profound differences cannot exist in exterior technique alone, but lie rather within the inner man.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 1 : A Critical Consideration of the New Pedagogy in its Relation to Modern Science, p. 7.
Context: To prepare teachers in the method of the experimental sciences is not an easy matter. When we shall have instructed them in anthropometry and psychometry in the most minute manner possible, we shall have only created machines, whose usefulness will be most doubtful. Indeed, if it is after this fashion that we are to initiate our teachers into experiment, we shall remain forever in the field of theory. The teachers of the old school, prepared according to the principles of metaphysical philosophy, understood the ideas of certain men regarded as authorities, and moved the muscles of speech in talking of them, and the muscles of the eye in reading their theories. Our scientific teachers, instead, are familiar with certain instruments and know how to move the muscles of the hand and arm in order to use these instruments; besides this, they have an intellectual preparation which consists of a series of typical tests, which they have, in a barren and mechanical way, learned how to apply.
The difference is not substantial, for profound differences cannot exist in exterior technique alone, but lie rather within the inner man. Not with all our initiation into scientific experiment have we prepared new masters, for, after all, we have left them standing without the door of real experimental science; we have not admitted them to the noblest and most profound phase of such study, — to that experience which makes real scientists.

Men, Lie, School, Way

“Have you ever been really scared and then your muscles relaxed? Being scared is just one relaxation of muscles, an orgasm is the contraction and relaxation of muscles over and over. then afterward, you are really sensitive to touch. your toes are tingly, heart rate is really high, you're all hot, you cant focus on anything other than the feelings coursing through your body.
its all warm, wet, hot, a sensory overload really.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Heart, Feeling

“inclusion + engagement = execution muscle”

Susan Scott

Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst "Best" Practices of Business Today

“The warmth of his body shouldn’t have felt good. He was angry and every muscle was tense. It was like being leaned on by a very heavy, warm brick. A sexy brick.”

Patricia Briggs book Iron Kissed

Source: Iron Kissed

“Do you give up?" Shezmu bellowed.
"No!" I yelled. "No, we don't give up. We will name you. Just… Gosh, you're quite well muscled, arn't you? Do you work out?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“I wonder how many ways there are for a mother to produce that wreckage in her own daughter, and my muscles tense as I think of them.”

Jon McGregor book If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Source: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Way, Thinking, Daughters

“Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Lord of the Silver Bow

Fear, Courage

“Have a purpose in life, and having it, throw into your work such strength of mind and muscle as God has given you.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Life, God

“I don't think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it's nice. It really is.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Thinking

“Her eyes burned, her muscles ached, but in some strange and secret place, she was happy to finally be doing something that wasn't just protecting herself, but protecting other people, too.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

People, Secret, Happiness

“… what makes you older is when your bones, muscles and blood wear out, when the heart sinks into oblivion and all the houses you ever lived in are gone and people are not really certain that your civilization ever existed.”

Richard Brautigan The Tokyo-Montana Express

Source: The Tokyo-Montana Express

People, Heart, Housing

“The baby!’ Nico grinned, which hurt his face muscles. He wasn’t used to making that expression. ‘Mellie and the kid are all right?”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Hurt, Baby

“When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Change

“People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Hurtful, People, Time

“I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“Flat muscled and honey coloured. Sea secrets in his eyes. A silver raindrop in his ear.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Secret, Sea

“I love muscle cars.”

Jaci Burton

One Sweet Ride

Love, Cars

“This should be agony. I should be a mass of aching muscle - broken, spent, unable to move. And, were I an older man, I surely would…… but I'm a man of thirty - of twenty again. The rain on my chest is a baptism - I'm born again…”

Frank Miller The Dark Knight Returns

Source: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

“We are adhering to life now with our last muscle — the heart.”

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) American Modernist writer, poet and artist

Quoted in "The Way of Transition : Embracing Life's Most Difficult Moments" (2002) by William Bridges, p. 204

Life, Heart

“Using a fetching face to make men do as you wish is no different from a man using muscle to force a woman to his will. Both are base, and both will fail a person as they age.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Men, Age, Personality

“Heroes rarely look the way we draw them in our minds: attractive, imposing figures with rippling muscles and strong chins. More times than not they are humble beings, small and flawed. It is only their spirits that are beautiful and strong.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Gift

Beauty, Way, Strong, Time

“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

God, Personality

“But you can't muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it like easing your body into a hot bath, until it no longer resists the shock and begins to enjoy it.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Way

“It is very hard to stay alive just for your own sake. It is very hard to stare into day after day without another familiar face staring back. It turns your heart into a purposeless muscle.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Heart

“The brain and muscles must develop simultaneously. Iron nerves with an intelligent brain — and the whole world is at your feet.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

World, Intelligence

“If you smile, even if you’re feeling bad, the action of the muscles will trick your brain into thinking you’re happy”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

Smile, Feeling, Thinking, Happiness

“How is it that I'd nearly been smothered to death, and yet I could sit there and notice things like my stepbrother's abdominal muscles a few minutes later?”

Meg Cabot book Shadowland

Source: Shadowland

Death

“Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.”

Ruth Gordon (1896–1985) American playwright and actress

Courageous, Courage

“Drive down any road,

take a train or an airplane
across the world, leave
your old life behind,

die and be born again~
wherever you arrive
they'll be there first,

glossy and rowdy
and indistinguishable.
The deep muscle of the world.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

Life, World, Training

“The golden rays of the moon paid him absolute tribute. He was a buffet of muscles and corded strength.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Playing with Fire

“Memory is a part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our hearts pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work to: it keeps us who we are.~Candle”

Gregory Maguire book Son of a Witch

Source: Son of a Witch

Memory, Heart, Parting

“Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

“I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: Selected Poems

“I tried to tell you. You said you didn't care, remember?"
A muscle ticked below his eye. "You should have told me anyway."
"While you had barbells within your reach? Please. I'm Disease, not Stupid.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Night

Stupidity, Disease

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.”

Jane Yolen (1939) American speculative fiction and children's writer

Exercises

“He was dressed just like on TV, with lots of silver chains and bracelets, ripped jeans, and a black muscle shirt (Which was kind of stupid, since he didn't have any muscles).”

Rick Riordan The Maze of Bones

Source: The Maze of Bones

Stupidity

“Divorce shreds the muscles of our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Heart

“Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Music, Winter

“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles. -- Muad'Dib”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

People, Science, Time

“You beat the liver out of a goose to get a pâté; you pound the muscles of a man's cardia to get a philosopher.”

Djuna Barnes book Nightwood

Source: Nightwood

“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Imagination

“I wanted so much to forget the past, but it wouldn't go away, it hung around like an open wound that refused to scar over, an open window that no amount of muscle could shut.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Past, Forgetting

“The heart is a very, very resilient little muscle. It really is.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Source: Hannah and Her Sisters

Heart

“At first it was for health and athletic performance but it also became about ethics and the environment. My strength increased. I put 20lbs on my dumbell benchpress (10lbs each arm) in only 2 weeks and my endurance improved. Running is much easier now. I have more energy and recovery is better too. The whole protein myth is complete nonsense. Plant-based foods have plenty. … As an athlete you want your endothelium, the inner lining of your arteries, to be as healthy as possible. It is responsible for nitric oxide production which transports oxygen to the muscles and dilates the arteries. More oxygen means better performance whether it be strength or endurance. Plant-based foods are inherently loaded with antioxidants too, which aid athletes in recovery. If someone wants to be the best athlete they can be they need to fuel their body with the best diet available and that is a whole food, plant-based diet.”

James Wilks (1978) English martial artist

“James Wilks,” interview with Great Vegan Athletes (2013) http://www.greatveganathletes.com/content/james-wilks.

Health, Food

“Early artists considered the human body, that forked radish, that defenseless starfish, a poor vehicle for the expression of energy, compared to the muscle-rippling bull and the streamlined antelope. Once more it was the Greeks, by their idealization of man, who turned the human body into an incarnation of energy, to us the most satisfying of all, for although it can never attain the uninhibited physical flow of the animal, its movements concern us more closely. Through art we can relive them in our own bodies, and achieve thereby that enhanced vitality which all thinkers on art, from Goethe to Berenson, have recognized as one of the chief sources of aesthetic pleasure.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. V: Energy

Pleasure, Art, Animals

“Tarzan of the Apes had decided to mark his evolution from the lower orders in every possible manner, and nothing seemed to him a more distinguishing badge of manhood than ornaments and clothing.
To this end, therefore, he collected the various arm and leg ornaments he had taken from the black warriors who had succumbed to his swift and silent noose, and donned them all after the way he had seen them worn.
About his neck hung the golden chain from which depended the diamond encrusted locket of his mother, the Lady Alice. At his back was a quiver of arrows slung from a leathern shoulder belt, another piece of loot from some vanquished black.
About his waist was a belt of tiny strips of rawhide fashioned by himself as a support for the home-made scabbard in which hung his father's hunting knife. The long bow which had been Kulonga's hung over his left shoulder.
The young Lord Greystoke was indeed a strange and war-like figure, his mass of black hair falling to his shoulders behind and cut with his hunting knife to a rude bang upon his forehead, that it might not fall before his eyes.
His straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god, told at a glance the wondrous combination of enormous strength with suppleness and speed.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 13 : His Own Kind

God, War, Way, Home

“Life is a beautiful struggle
People search through the rubble for a suitable hussle
Some people using their noodle
Some people using their muscle
Some people put it all together make it fit like a puzzle”

Talib Kweli (1975) American rapper

I try
Albums, The Beautiful Struggle (2004)

Life, People, Beauty, Search

“Spike: I had a muscle cramp. Buffy was, uh, helping.
Tara: A muscle cramp… in your pants?
Spike: What? It's a thing.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

I Was Made to Love You [5.15]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)

Help

“How can anyone be interested in war? — that glorious pursuit of annihilation with its ceremonious bellowings and trumpetings over the mangling of human bones and muscles and organs and eyes, its inconceivable agonies which could have been prevented by a few well-chosen, reasonable words. How, why, did this unnecessary business begin? Why does anyone want to read about it — this redundant human madness which men accept as inevitable?”

Margaret Caroline Anderson (1886–1973) American magazine editor

The Strange Necessity (1969), part 1.

Men, War, Business, Reading

“Like a fish in the wind, jumps right out of its knowledge, and lands on the sand. Like when the wind comes ruffling at last, to sailors adrift, trying to manage the broken springs of their muscles, and lever and lift their well rubbed oars, making tiny dents, in the ocean. Like when they're cutting ash poles in the hills, the treetops fall as soft as cloth. Like oak trees swerving out of the hills, and setting their faces to the wind, day after day being practically lifted away, they are lashed to the earth, and never let go, gripping on darkness. All day in a trance of war, men murder each other, but at dusk, silence, only the fingers of fire lifting their questions to the mainland. Is there anybody there, please help. Help. help. Until he's full, and of his own iron will walks on.”

Alice Oswald (1966) British poet

Men, War, Spring, Question

“Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Village Blacksmith

St. 1.
The Village Blacksmith (1842)

Tree, Strong

“But patience can't be acquired overnight. It's just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it, to push its limits.”

Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) spiritual teacher, author of books on meditation and spiritual practice, and translator and interpreter of …

[Your life is your message: Finding harmony with yourself, others, and the earth, Easwaran, Eknath, w:Eknath Easwaran, 1997, Hyperion, New York, 0786882662, http://books.google.com/books?id=xKlCo3suzTkC&pg=PA42&dq=Patience+can%27t+be+acquired+overnight.+It+is+just+like+building+up+a+muscle.+Every+day+you+need+to+work+on+it+inauthor:eknath+inauthor:easwaran&hl=en&ei=9UCVTqyUKuKsiAKB1oy6CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Patience%20can%27t%20be%20acquired%20overnight.%20It%20is%20just%20like%20building%20up%20a%20muscle.%20Every%20day%20you%20need%20to%20work%20on%20it%20inauthor%3Aeknath%20inauthor%3Aeaswaran&f=false] (p. 42) (work originally published 1992)

Patience

“Do you see all those beautiful trees there? I sketched them all thirty years ago; I have had all their portraits. Look at that beech there, the sun lights it up and makes of it a marble column, a column that has muscles, limbs, hands and a fair skin, white and pallid... See the modest green of the heath and its plants, rosy, amaranthine, which distil honey for the bees and fragrance for the butterflies. The sun lights them up and gives them a diapason of extraordinary color. Ah, the sun..”

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) French painter (1812-1867)

Quote of Th. Rousseau, Sept. 1867; recorded by fr:Alfred Sensier; as cited by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye; publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, p. 164
In September 1867 (two months before Rousseau’s death, when already half paralyzed), Th. Rouseau took a ride with Sensier to look once more at the heather. He was pointing to the Sully, a giant of the wood
1851 - 1867

Beauty, Color, Tree, Light

“To meet these necessities the Government has been developing a water power project at Muscle Shoals to be equipped to produce nitrogen for explosives and fertilizer. It is my opinion that the support of agriculture is the chief problem to consider in connection with this property. It could by no means supply the present needs for nitrogen, but it would help and its development would encourage bringing other water powers into like use.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Support, Problem, Water, Help

“Generally speaking, if we look at sports we find that their strong point is that because they are competitive they are interesting, and young people are likely to be attracted to them. No matter how valuable the method of physical education, if it is not put into practice, it will serve no purpose — therein lies the advantage of sports. But, in this regard there are matters to which we must also give a great deal of consideration. First, so-called sports were not created for the purpose of physical education; one competes for another purpose, namely, to win. Accordingly, the muscles are not necessarily developed in a balanced way, and in some cases the body is pushed too far or even injured. For that reason, while there is no doubt that sports are a good thing, serious consideration must be given to the selection of the sport and the training method. Sports must not be undertaken carelessly, over-zealously, or without restraint. However, it is safe to say that competitive sports are a form of physical education that should be promoted with this advice in mind. The reason I have worked to popularize sports for more than twenty years and that I have strived to bring the Olympic Games to Japan is entirely because I recognize these merits. However, in times like these, when many people are enthusiastic about sports, I would like to remind them of the adverse effects of sports as well. I also urge them to keep in mind the goals of physical education—to develop a sound body that is useful to you in your daily life — and be sure to consider whether or not the method of training is in keeping with the concept of”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

http://www.judoinfo.com/seiryoku2.htm seiryoku zenyo
"Judo and Physical Training" in Mind Over Muscle : Writings from the Founder of Judo (2006) edited by Naoki Murata, p. 57

Life, People, Education, Way

“In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy; do this deed for me?"”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Epigram.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life, Fate, Training

“The etude is a Romantic idea. It appeared in the early nineteenth century as a new genre: a short piece in which the musical interest is derived almost entirely from a single technical problem. A mechanical difficulty directly produces the music, its charm, and its pathos. Beauty and technique are united, but the creative stimulus is the hand, with its arrangement of muscles and tendons, its idiosyncratic shape.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 6 : Chopin: Virtuosity Transformed

Beauty, Music, Idea, Problem

“I know this goes without saying, but Stonehenge really was the most incredible accomplishment. It took five hundred men just to pull each sarsen, plus a hundred more to dash around positioning the rollers. Just think about it for a minute. Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, "Right, lads! Another twenty like that, plus some lintels and maybe a couple of dozen nice bluestones from Wales, and we can party!"”

Bill Bryson book Notes from a Small Island

Whoever was the person behind Stonehenge was one dickens of a motivator, I'll tell you that.
Notes from a Small Island (1995)

Men, People, Imagination, Motivation

“I have never discovered that the nude could be studied in any way except the way I have adopted. All the muscles must be pointed out. To do this all the drapery must be removed.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Said to art critic Riter Fitzgerald, who quoted Eakins in an article in the Philadelphia Item (1895); from Sylvan Schendler, Eakins (1967), ch. 10.

Way, Study

“When I look at the murder, rape and starvation to which the people of Darfur are being subjected, I fear that we have not got far beyond “lip service”. The lesson here is that high-sounding doctrines like the “responsibility to protect” will remain pure rhetoric unless and until those with the power to intervene effectively — by exerting political, economic or, in the last resort, military muscle — are prepared to take the lead.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)

People, Fear

“Kerchak was dead.
Withdrawing the knife that had so often rendered him master of far mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his vanquished enemy, and once again, loud through the forest rang the fierce, wild cry of the conqueror.
And thus came the young Lord Greystoke into the kingship of the Apes.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 11 : "King of the Apes"

Cry, Dead

“My journey to veganism began when I was a sophomore in high school. … For a long time before that, I felt a connection to animals and believed it was wrong to eat creatures with personalities, thoughts, and the ability to show love and affection. I grew up on an animal farm … It was in this environment, with direct contact to farm animals, that I decided that eating meat was not in accordance with my values. … There is nothing more effective than tangible results to show people that athletic achievement and substantial muscle growth can be achieved healthfully on a plant-based diet.”

Robert Cheeke (1980) American bodybuilder

"Plant Power: Q & A with Vegan Bodybuilder Robert Cheeke" https://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/plant-power-q-a-with-vegan-bodybuilder-robert-cheeke, interview with Vegetarian Times (May 1, 2013).

Love, People, School, Time

“In this way, we influence the muscles of physiognomy [facial expression] and it is possible for us to arouse any passion or sentiment whatsoever; the contraction of the interconnected muscles, constituting “the anatomy of expression”, evokes in the brain of the hypnotised person certain impressions just as these, in the waking state, determine the whole facial expression. It is thus merely a reversal of the usual order [of causation] between the emotions and their physical expressions.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

Original Philosophy of Hypnotism The International College of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

Way, Passion, Personality

“It is too early to say there is a consensus about how all these topics fit together. Yet one can say that the new classical challenge has been met: Keynesian economics has been reincarnated into a body with firm microeconomic muscle.”

N. Gregory Mankiw (1958) American economist

N. Gregory Mankiw, "The reincarnation of Keynesian economics", European Economic Review (1992).
1990s

“Balla, he advanced Dynamic Futurism.... drawing closer, not to the human body but to the machine, as contemporary muscles of a man of today... The actual structure of each of Balla's works tells us that the dynamic power sensed by the artist is incomparable greater than the actual bodies of the machines, and the content of each machine is only a small part of this dynamic power, since each machine is a mere unit from the sum total of the forces of contemporary life.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote, c. 1915 in: 'Cubofuturism', Malevich, in Essays on Art, op. cit., vol 2; as quoted in Futurism, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, pp. 59-60
1910 - 1920

Life, Sense, Future, Parting

“If you are serious about preparedness, then it is time to get out of your armchair and start training and preparing. It will take time. It will take some sweat. It will take money. But once you’ve prepared, you can sleep well, knowing that you’ve done your best to protect and provide for your family, regardless of what the future brings. Don’t get stuck in the rut of simply *studying* preparedness. Unless the shelves in your pantry and garage are filling with supplies, and unless you are growing muscles and calluses, you are not preparing.”

James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

Source: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, Plume, New York (2009), p. 289

Money, Family, Sleep, Study