"In writing this book I have taken it as a commonplace that everyoneâman, woman, and childâwants to be strong. Without strengthâand by strength I mean health, vitality, and a general sense of physical well-beingâlife is but a gloomy business. Wealth, talent, ambition, the love and affection of friends, the pleasure derived from doing good to those about one, all these things may afford some consolation for being deprived of life's chief blessing, but they can never make up for it." Eugene Sandow was a professional bodybuilder from Germany, so he knew what he was talking about when he wrote Strength and How to Obtain It.