Roger Bannister famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Just because they say it's impossible doesn't mean you can't do it.
-- Roger Bannister

#Mean #Impossible
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
-- Roger Bannister

#Motivational #Success #Fitness
We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves...The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable.
-- Roger Bannister

#Motivational #Sports #Running
Doctors and scientists said breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead
-- Roger Bannister

#Sports #Doctors #Track
It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.
-- Roger Bannister

#Heart #Brain #Critical
Sport is not about being wrapped up in cotton wool. Sport as about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Sport, like all life, is about taking risks.
-- Roger Bannister

#Leadership #Sports #Running
Without the concentration of the mind and the will, performance would not result.
-- Roger Bannister

#Mind #Results #Concentration
I trained for less than three-quarters of an hour, maybe five days a week - I didn't have time to do more. But it was all about quality, not quantity - so I didn't waste time jogging, ever.
-- Roger Bannister

#Quality Not Quantity #Jogging #Three
Sport, like all of life, is about taking your chances.
-- Roger Bannister

#Sports #Running #Risk
To move into the lead means making an act requiring fierceness and confidence. But fear must play some part...no relaxation is possible, and all discretion is thrown into the wind.
-- Roger Bannister

#Running #Moving #Mean
The essence of sports is that while you're doing it, nothing else matters, but after you stop, there is a place, generally not very important, where you would put it.
-- Roger Bannister

#Sports #Essence #Important
No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed.
-- Roger Bannister

#Beauty #Dream #Unity
Every time I ran the mile I was aware of my own weakness, there was some opponent who could give me a hell of a fight, so I never went into a race with a sense of invincibility. I always had that feeling of fragility and nerves which made me run faster.
-- Roger Bannister

#Running #Fighting #Race
I wanted to be a neurologist. That seemed to be the most difficult, most intriguing, and the most important aspect of medicine, which had links with psychology, aggression, behavior, and human affairs.
-- Roger Bannister

#Sports #Athlete #Medicine
The reason sport is attractive to many of the general public is that it's filled with reversals. What you think may happen doesn't happen. A champion is beaten, an unknown becomes a champion.
-- Roger Bannister

#Sports #Athlete #Thinking
The man who goes on, even when it's the hardest to be the winner.
-- Roger Bannister

#Loss #Men #Goes On
I couldn't touch my toes with straight legs, but I could break 4 minutes for the mile.
-- Roger Bannister

#Legs #Toes #Break
Whether we athletes liked it or not, the 4-minute mile had become rather like an Everest: a challenge to the human spirit, it was a barrier that seemed to defy all attempts to break it, an irksome reminder that men's striving might be in vain.
-- Roger Bannister

#Running #Athlete #Men
If a man coaches himself, then he has only himself to blame when he is beaten.
-- Roger Bannister

#Running #Men #Blame
It's a question of spreading the available energy, aerobic and anaerobic, evenly over four minutes. If you run one part too fast, you pay a price. If you run another part more slowly your overall time is slower.
-- Roger Bannister

#Sports #Running #Athlete
It's amazing that more people have climbed Mount Everest than have broken the 4-minute mile.
-- Roger Bannister

#People #Broken #Climbing Mount Everest
Our house was bombed, and the roof fell in. We were sitting under the stairs of the basement, and we were quite safe, but it brought home the realization. In two nights 400 people were killed in small town.
-- Roger Bannister

#Sports #Athlete #Home
I think that is a universal adolescent feeling, trying to find your place. The adolescent who is perfectly adjusted to his environment, I've yet to meet.
-- Roger Bannister

#Athlete #Thinking #Feelings

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