The automaker Henry Ford (1863-1947) said “history is more or less bunk” in a 1916 newspaper interview. Ford is also usually credited with saying, “Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy you don’t need it; if you are sick you shouldn’t take it.” The first known credit of this saying to Henry Ford was in 1953.
 
George Jean Nathan (1882-1958), an American drama critic and editor, was credited for saying “exercise is bunk” by an October 1925 newspaper that cited Nathan’s comments in Liberty magazine. Liberty magazine isn’t available online, but it’s more likely that Nathan said made these comments than Ford.
 
   
Wikiquote: Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company. He was one of the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the mass production of affordable automobiles.
 
Quotes
I don’t know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across there and I don’t care. I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
. Interview in Chicago Tribune (25 May 1916)
 
9 October 1925, Winnipeg (Manitoba) Free Press, pg. 13, col. 5:
SAYS EXERCISE IS BUNK
(George Jean Nathan in Liberty.)
In my own wide range of acquaintances I have known but two men who have been devotees of the exercise theory who haven’t shown the evil effects of it when they pressed the line of forty.
 
13 February 1930, Wisconsin Rapids (WI) Daily Tribune, pg. 6, col. 2:
William Muldoon, famous trainer of pugilists, is quoted as saying recently, that exercise is “mostly bunk.” “Use moderation and judgment” in exercising, he is quoted as saying.
 
20 October 1936, Mason City (IA) Globe-Gazette, “All of Us” by Marshall Maslin, pg. 2, col. 4:
EXERCISE IS THE BUNK
I KNOW A LOT of otherwise intelligent human being who think exercise is fine.
 
I don’t…I think it’s the bunk. I think it’s the dullest, sturdiest, least worthwhile way of putting in your time.
 
2 March 1952, Syracuse (NY) Herald-American, pg. 26, col. 1:
“Exercise Is Bunk” If You Are Over Forty
By Peter J. Steincrohn, M.D.
I AM FULLY CONVINCED that exercise is bosh. I am trying to pass on to you the reasons for my belief.
 
Google Books
Along My Line
By Gilbert Harding
London, Putnam
1953
Pg. 41:
As we dispersed to our various destinations, my feet dragging heavily over the hard, hard pavements, I fervently echoed Henry Ford’s wise maxim: “Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy you don’t need it; if you are sick you shouldn’t take it.”
   
Google Books
Executive Health:
How to recognize health danger signals and manage stress successfully
By Philip Goldberg
New York, NY: Business Week, McGraw-Hill
1978
Pg. 129:
Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick, you shouldn’t take it. — Henry Ford
 
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The New Environmental Handbook
By Garrett De Bell, Aubrey Wallace and David Gancher
San Francisco, CA: Friends of the Earth
1980
Pg. 135:
EXERCISE IS BUNK. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick, you shouldn’t take it.
Henry Ford
 
28 February 1982, Sunday Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica), pg. 8, cols. 1-2:
Henry Ford, the motor king, who was of athletic build and lived to be 84 used to say: “Exercise is bunk. If you are well, you don’t need it; if you are ill, you shouldn’t take it.”
 
When well past the age of 70 George Jean Nathan, the American theatrical critic, attributed his fitness to the fact that the only exercise he took was opening the doors of taxis and crawling inside.
 
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Money Talks:
The 2500 greatest business quotes from Aristotle to DeLorean
By Robert Warren Kent
New York, NY: Pocket Books
1986, ©1985
Pg. 185:
Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick, you shouldn’t take it.
Attributed to Henry Ford
 
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The Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations
By Peter McDonald
New York, NY: Oxford University Press
2004
Pg. 36:
Henry Ford 1863-1947
US car manufacturer
“Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick, you shouldn’t take it.”
Attributed
 
Google Books
Wise Sayings:
For Your Thoughtful Consideration
By Walter W. Moore
Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse
2011
Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it; if you are sick, you should not take it.
(Henry Ford—ed.)