"Preparing your body physically is vital to your success in overcoming challenges and reaching goals. You must be in as peak a physical condition as possible to withstand both the physical and mental rigours you will encounter.
"When you start a serious and consistent training programme, your body begins to transform itself in various ways. Your bones will start to thicken in your feet and legs and become more robust; your circulation will improve; the walls of the heart thicken and its chambers increase in size; your joints are lubricated and work more efficiently; the muscles in the diaphragm become stronger and more efficient, which aids breathing; the number of blood vessels that supply each muscle cell is increased and the mitochondria multiply, enhancing the cell's use of oxygen to produce energy. The rate at which the cell burns fat to produce energy is also increased. Overall, the fast-twitch muscles in your body increase their resistance to fatigue. The respiratory system is cleared of mucus while running, which enables you to breathe more clearly. The skin becomes more efficient in regulating heat and resisting cold, and more efficient perspiration tends to have a cleansing effect that reduces the likelihood of catching skin-related infections." - The Elite Forces Manual of Mental & Physical Endurance, Alexander Stillwell, (c) 2005, p. 25

"Everyone stumbles over the truth from time to time, but most people pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing ever happened." - Sir Winston Churchill

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them." - George Bernard Shaw

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back into bondage." - Alexander Fraser Tytler, Scottish historian (b. 1747).

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unimagined in common hours." - Henry David Thoreau