"We were made to exercise. We feel better"
About this Quote
A tidy, almost boring sentence that smuggles in a whole worldview: Bob Greene’s line frames exercise as destiny, not preference. “We were made” does heavy lifting. It yanks the conversation away from willpower, aesthetics, or New Year’s guilt and plants it in biology and inevitability. If the body is designed for motion, then being sedentary isn’t just a “bad habit” - it’s a mismatch between modern life and human wiring.
The second sentence, “We feel better,” lands like a newsroom edit: short, unarguable, testable. Greene isn’t selling abs; he’s selling mood, energy, sanity. That’s the subtext that made his work resonate in late-20th-century American culture, when fitness shifted from niche (joggers, gym rats) to mainstream self-management. The rise of desk work, drive-through convenience, and ambient stress created a new problem - and fitness journalism offered a clean solution packaged as common sense.
There’s also a quiet rhetorical trick here: the “we.” It drafts the reader into a collective identity, flattening differences in age, ability, class, and time. That’s persuasive, and also slippery. Not everyone experiences exercise as straightforward relief; injury, disability, and chronic illness complicate the premise. Still, the quote works because it sidesteps moralizing. Instead of “you should,” Greene implies “you’re built for this,” making movement feel less like punishment and more like homecoming.
The second sentence, “We feel better,” lands like a newsroom edit: short, unarguable, testable. Greene isn’t selling abs; he’s selling mood, energy, sanity. That’s the subtext that made his work resonate in late-20th-century American culture, when fitness shifted from niche (joggers, gym rats) to mainstream self-management. The rise of desk work, drive-through convenience, and ambient stress created a new problem - and fitness journalism offered a clean solution packaged as common sense.
There’s also a quiet rhetorical trick here: the “we.” It drafts the reader into a collective identity, flattening differences in age, ability, class, and time. That’s persuasive, and also slippery. Not everyone experiences exercise as straightforward relief; injury, disability, and chronic illness complicate the premise. Still, the quote works because it sidesteps moralizing. Instead of “you should,” Greene implies “you’re built for this,” making movement feel less like punishment and more like homecoming.
Quote Details
| Topic | Fitness |
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