Quotes on Athletic

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

It's been a constant struggle with my athletic career to identify myself as a child of God and understand that His love is unconditional for us; it's not conditional like fans, or coaches, or even myself.

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness - a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster children into strength and athletic proportion.

In the end, it's extra effort that separates a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more that that, too. It starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don't win, how can you lose?

Sports do not build character. They reveal it.

Natural talent only determines the limits of your athletic potential. It's dedication and a willingness to discipline your life that makes you great.

Throughout my athletic career, the overall goal was always to be a better athlete than I was at the moment – whether next week, next month or next year. The improvement was the goal. The medal was simply the ultimate reward for achieving that goal.

Nothing good comes in life or athletics unless a lot of hard work has preceded the effort. Only temporary success is achieved by taking short cuts.

The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.

What is learned on the athletic field is not forgotten, nor are the lessons of character that are forged there ever lost. Consider the contributions in the field of public life, business, law, medicine, and the military of those who actively participated in athletics.

Your biggest opponent isn't the other guy. It's human nature.

I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess. ... We found our refuge in science. ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.

Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back... play for her.

It's not enough to say that the Olympics is an athletic contest outside of politics, because it's not. The Chinese clearly are using the Olympics to recreate how they are viewed in the world and how they view themselves.

Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding.

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

It's not the will to win that matters-everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.

I remember the last season I played. I went home after a ballgame one day, lay down on my bed, and tears came to my eyes. How can you explain that? It's like crying for your mother after she's gone. You cry because you love her. I cried, I guess, because I loved baseball, and I knew I had to leave it.

Football is like life - it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.

There might have been a thousand people who had a better athletic feat than what I did. So for me, just the fact that they gave Canadian Athlete of the Year - and also, I was voted third in the Male Athlete of the Year - the fact that some people did consider what I did an athletic feat, that really makes me feel good.