Echoes

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.

Anyone who lives a sedentary life and does not exercise, even if he eats good foods and takes care of himself according to proper medical principles — all his days will be painful ones and his strength shall wane.

An immoderate diet is unhealthy, but a temperate one preserves strength.

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

A person should not eat until his stomach is full. Rather, he should eat until he has consumed approximately three quarters of his fill.

Excessive eating is like a deadly poison to the body and is a principal cause of all illness.

Those who are slaves to their appetites cannot preserve their reason, their memory, or their senses in their full vigour; for a full belly does not produce a fine mind.

There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.

Everyone has a doctor in him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food.

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

I eat only what is enough to sustain my life. My food is bread, soup, an egg, and a little meat. And the amount I eat is no more than my body can easily digest.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

One should not eat unless one is hungry, nor drink unless one is thirsty.

The food which a temperate man leaves upon his plate is more beneficial than that which a glutton eats.

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

Walking is man's best medicine.

Abstinence is the nurse of the soul.

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

The stomach is not to be loaded, for there is nothing so hostile to thought as a full belly.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.