86 Quotes by Roger Bannister

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.

It is a paradox to say the human body has no ‘limit.’ There must be a limit to the speed at which men can run. I feel this may be around 3:30 for the mile. However, another paradox remains – if an athlete manages to run 3:30, another runner could be found to marginally improve on that time.

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.

Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn’t matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be moving.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.