Food for Thought- Not the Usual Quotes for Runners

We've noticed that some running columnists recycle the same 5 or 6 running quotes (yawn!) over and over. Here are some other quotes, some running-- but all of them interesting-- that we've come across recently:

Somewhere in the world someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win. ~ Tom Fleming

I wanted to quit because I was suffering. That is not a good enough reason. ~ Ted Corbitt

Belief creates the actual fact. ~William James

 The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win. ~Sir Roger Bannister

A horse doesn’t care how much you know until it knows how much you care. ~ Tom Smith Trainer of SeaBiscuit

I don't judge success by what I once did, but by what I keep doing. ~ Boston Marathon Legend Johnny Kelley

If you’re willing to do today what others won’t, you can perform tomorrow like others can’t. ~Jim Brogan

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca

And where does the power come from to see the race to its end? It comes from within. ~ Eric Liddell

 You can only punish your body so long before you’re stuck with a horrendous inability to do things you’d previously been able to do. ~Burt Shavitz
Time wounds all heels. ~ John Lennon

Find a way or make one. ~ Admiral Peary

Only think of two things - the gun and the tape. When you hear the one, just run like hell until you break the other. ~Sam Mussabini (Liddell's coach)

The true object of all human life is play. ~G.K. Chesterton

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. ~Shakespeare

See everything. Overlook a great deal. Improve a little. ~Pope John XXIII

 

Don't run as hard as you can-- run as fast as you can without straining. ~ Coach Jack Daniels

Go out hard. Pick it up in the middle and sprint at the end. ~Coach Browning Ross

If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
~ William Hazlitt

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time. ~Robert F Kennedy

It's the Olympics. If you can't get up to swim early in the morning, don't go.
~ Michael Phelps

The secret of managing is to keep the 5 guys who hate you away from the 5 guys who are undecided. ~ Casey Stengel

Every runner is an experiment of one. ~George Sheehan

Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't imagine what it might be. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Silence gives consent. ~Pope Boniface VIII

If you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do.~General George Patton

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

"I like running because it's a challenge. If you run hard, there's the pain - and you've got to work your way through the pain. You know, lately it seems all you hear is "Don't overdo it" and "Don't push yourself." Well, I think that's a lot of bull. If you push the human body, it will respond." ~ Bob Clarke, Philadelphia Flyers, NHL Hall of Famer.

If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Eighty percent of success in life is just showing up. ~ Woody Allen

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
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 unexpected in common hours.
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
~ Henry David Thoreau


Runners make runners. ~ Villanova Coach Jumbo Elliott

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
The louder he talked of his honesty, the quicker we counted the silverware.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

All the speed in the world won’t help you when you can’t run another step. ~ Browning Ross on the importance of distance training to supplement speed.


You just can't beat the person who never gives up, don't let the fear of striking out hold you back. ~ Babe Ruth
I’m a champ at that game mister!
~ Babe Ruth when asked if he could play tennis.


You can’t pray a lie.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer someone else up.
Money was their god and the getting of it their religion.
~ Mark Twain

When we yield to discouragement it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future. ~ St. Theresa of Lisieux

You had no faith to lose and you know it. ~Bob Dylan


I might have to consider coaching-- I'm getting too old to be a world class runner and my mind isn't gone enough to become an official. ~ Sebastian Coe

I throw just as hard as ever-- it just takes twice as long to get there. ~ Warren Spahn

The best way out is always through. ~ Robert Frost


God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.
Energy and persistence conquer all things.
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! Oh, it's
easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.
Well done is better than well said. ~ Ben Franklin

When two doctors pass each other on the street they wink at each other. ~ Ty Cobb


One man can make a difference, every man must try.
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. ~ President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocket book
groans more loudly than an empty stomach. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Excuses are easy to manufacture and hard to sell. ~ Chinese Proverb

Running offers both pleasure and pain. There is nothing like the purification of the soul through running. Running helps you connect with what is important in your soul. ~ Tom Osler

Better make it four. I don't think I can eat eight. -Yogi Berra’s reply when asked if he wanted his pizza cut into four or eight slices.
You can’t hit and think at the same time. ~ Yogi Berra

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. ~ PT Barnum

Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on that
one subject! ~ Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D on his report card.

If I look at the mass of people I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.
~ Mother Theresa

Your attitude determines your altitude.
You can only give 100%. When I hear someone say they just gave 110% or more, I have to think they probably usually only give 80%. ~  Larry James

Mediocrity is excellence in the eyes of the mediocre. ~ Joseph Joubert

I wouldn’t want to belong to any organization that would accept me as a member. ~ Groucho Marx

It is easier for most people to say what they are against than what they are for. ~Irish saying

One more stage, one more limo, one more run for your life. ~John Lennon on the Beatles



Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
~ Hunter S Thompson


"Mind is everything: muscle - pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind." ~ Paavo Nurmi

"Run hard, be strong, think big!" ~ Percy Cerutty

If I could invent one pill that would alleviate all of your ailments, migraine headaches, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, whatever, can you come up with the name I’d give this pill?’ They’d think about it and nobody would answer. I said, ‘It’s easy. I’d call it exercise. ~ 1964 US Olympian Oscar Moore

For an updated version of this article see the new book "Positive Splits"
https://www.amazon.com/Positive-Splits-Running-Stories/dp/1548655341/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=jack+heath&qid=1565713559&s=books&sr=1-3