Athlete Quotes - Page 36

• I couldn't disappoint people. I did not want to fail and exhaust myself, because I was the kind of runner who trained so little that I couldn't race again within another 10 days.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Race, People

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• I found longer races boring. I found the mile just perfect.

  Roger Bannister

  Race, Perfect, Boring

  "Sir Roger Bannister on Passion". he Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org.

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• I lived on the top of one hill and the school was at the top of another hill. Nobody ever went to school by car - we didn't have any cars during the war. So that to and from school was itself a training.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, War, School

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• It had always been a British preoccupation to hold this mile record.

  Roger Bannister

  Records, Preoccupation, Miles

  "What It Takes" with Alice Winkler, learningenglish.voanews.com. February 23, 2018.

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• 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

  Thinking, Feelings, Trying

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• I've always been very impatient. At age 10 I frankly found life boring, and I can remember age 9 having the awful thought, as it seems now looking back on it, A war! That should liven things up a bit!

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, War, Age

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• I was always a great bundle of energy. As a child, instead of walking, I would run. And so running, which is a pain to a lot of people, was always a pleasure to me because it was so easy.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Running, Children

  "The Gigantic Book of Running Quotations". Book edited by Hal Higdon, 2011.

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• I was involved in music, acting, and some running, but my firm wish was to become a doctor. That was the formative age when I had decided on the pattern of my career.

  Roger Bannister

  Running, Doctors, Careers

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• I was playing rugby and the other games English school children do, and there was an event which was planned in which races were run, and I simply just won these by a considerable margin

  Roger Bannister

  Inspirational, Sports, Running

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• Life was very simple. My parents had come from the North of England, which is a fairly rugged, bleak, hard-working part of England, and so there was not the expectation of luxury.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Hard Work, Simple

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• May is a very early time in the year and the weather is usually bad. You cannot run a fast mile race if there is a strong wind, because it makes your running uneven.

  Roger Bannister

  Running, Strong, Race

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• Mothers, unless they were very poor, didn't work. Both of my parents had to leave education. My mother had to work in a cotton mill until 18 or 19, when she took some training in domestic science.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Mother, Parent

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• My athleticism was really the core to social acceptance, because in those days the overwhelming number of students came from more of a public school background than I did.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, School, Acceptance

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• My concentration was really on getting to university and becoming a doctor. My parents let me know that school marks were important. Achievement was something which came by hard work.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Hard Work, School

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• My family actually lived in the same village for about 400 years. They had great stability until the last century. People lived and intermarried in small villages.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Years, People

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• My introduction to track racing was through the background of cross country running, which is not a sport perhaps as popular in America as it is in England.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Running, Country

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• 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, Home, Night

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• The Athletic Association competed against the University. So there was an event. You cannot break world records unless it is an established event, and you have three timekeepers, and the whole thing is organized.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Athletic, Events

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• When I was about to break a world record and become well known, my mother used to say that for her the important thing was for me to become a doctor - a career which had not been possible in her generation and in her society. Sport was something to be set aside.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Mother, Doctors

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• You get very tired, and there was a certain amount of pain and you slow up. Your legs are so tired that you are in fact slowing. If you don't keep running, keep your blood circulating, the muscles stop pumping the blood back and you get dizzy.

  Roger Bannister

  Sports, Running, Pain

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• Your spikes, which were really quite long then, would catch the material of the track and your shoe would get heavier. I was simply filing them down and rubbing some graphite on the spikes, so that I thought I would run more effectively.

  Roger Bannister

  Running, Shoes, Track

  "Breaking the Four-Minute Mile". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 7, 2002.

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• Discipline of others isn't punishment. You discipline to help, to improve, to correct, to prevent, not to punish, humiliate, or retaliate.

  John Wooden

  Inspirational, Sports, Punishment

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• Maybe you can't play over your head at all. Maybe it's just potential you never knew you had.

  Fran Tarkenton

  Inspirational, Sports, Play

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• The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move.

  John Wooden

  Basketball, Motivational Sports, Moving

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• My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.

  Wilma Rudolph

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  40 Copy quote