100+ Inspirational Track Quotes to Ignite Your Passion and Perseverance

"The only real limitation is the one you set for yourself."

- Ashton Eaton

"The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."

- Barack Obama

"The real glory is being knocked to your feet and then coming back. That's real glory. That's the essence of it."

- Vince Lombardi

"What you believe, you can achieve."

- Mary Decker

"Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right."

- Henry Ford

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."

- John Bingham

"Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up."

- Dean Karnazes

"The body does not want you to do this. As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong. You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy... It is not age; it is not diet. It is the will to succeed."

- Jacqueline Hansen

"The mind is the strongest muscle in your body. If you can overcome the doubt in your mind, you can achieve success."

- Jesse Owens

"The body achieves what the mind believes."

- Florence Griffith Joyner

"If you run, you are a runner. It doesn't matter how fast or how far. It doesn't matter if today is your first day or if you've been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run."

- John Bingham

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

- Serena Williams

"The body does what the mind believes."

- Michael Johnson

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

- Colin Powell

"The only true limitation is the one you set for yourself."

- Usain Bolt

""It hurts, but that’s all it does. The most difficult part of the training is training your mind. You build calluses on your feet to endure the road. You build calluses on your mind to endure the pain. There’s only one way to do that. You have to get out there and run.""

- David Goggins

"I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability."

- Bruce Jenner

""Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile. So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it. ” I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,”—and we’re still running—“if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, ‘“Why did you say that?” He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”"

- Bruce Lee (as recounted)

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life because you get out of it what you put into it."

- Oprah Winfrey

""I trained 4 years to run only 9 seconds. There are people who do not see results in two months, give up and quit.""

- Usain Bolt

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."

- Steve Prefontaine

"Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision."

- Muhammad Ali

"The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible."

- Joel Brown

"The best motivation always comes from within."

- Michael Johnson

"The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."

- John Bingham

"I always want to give more than I gave yesterday."

- Allyson Felix

"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare."

- Juma Ikangaa

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in determination."

- Usain Bolt

"We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"Worrying gets you nowhere. If you turn up worrying about how you’re going to perform, you’ve already lost. Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself."

- Usain Bolt

"Failure I can live with. Not trying is what I can’t handle."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"I am a big believer in visualization. I run through my races mentally so that I feel even more prepared."

- Allyson Felix

"I don’t think limits."

- Usain Bolt

"Kill them with success and bury them with a smile."

- Usain Bolt

"I know what I can do so it doesn’t bother me what other people think or their opinion on the situation."

- Usain Bolt

"Life can lure us into this fantasy. A fantasy of fear. We look around and begin to fear we aren’t good enough for the right here and right now, so we create illusions in our minds of what we still need to be — when all we need to be is present in this moment, at this time."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"When you finally realize your gifts and talents, joy and satisfaction come as you walk in your purpose."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got"

- Mark Twain

"Before a race, I block out what's going on in the stadium. It's different for everyone. But for me, I've always been able to block it out. For a sprint race, it's important not to get distracted."

- Allyson Felix

"If you don't have confidence, you'll always find a way not to win."

- Carl Lewis

"Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter: long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best."

- Michael Johnson

"One of the main techniques I used was focusing on the goal and visualizing myself competing in the race before the race started."

- Michael Johnson

"The mind is absolutely instrumental in achieving results, even for athletes. Sports psychology is a very small part, but it's extremely important when you're winning and losing races by hundredths and even thousandths of a second."

- Michael Johnson

"If you want to run, then run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon."

- Emil Zatopek

"The more I train, the more I realize that it's not about the medals. It's about the journey and the person I become."

- Allyson Felix

"Don't worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow."

- Oprah Winfrey

"You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out."

- Steve Jobs

"You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy."

- Arthur Ashe

"The more you dream, the farther you get."

- Michael Phelps

"If you want to succeed, you have to let failure be your best friend!"

- Yorck Segatz

"You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning."

- Billy Wilder

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Pele

"The biggest thrill wasn't in winning on the field but in surviving."

- Lou Gehrig

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."

- C.S. Lewis

"It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

"You don’t stop running because you get old. You get old because you stop running."

- Christopher McDougall

"If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you."

- Fred Devito

"I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days."

- Ronald Rook

"The obsession with running is really an obsession with the potential for more and more life."

- George Sheehan

"The real purpose of running isn’t to win a race; it’s to test the limits of the human heart."

- Bill Bowerman

"You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless."

- Christopher McDougall

"A runner must run with dreams in his heart."

- Emil Zatopek

"To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you."

- Tony Dorsett

"To begin, begin."

- Peter Nivio Zarlenga

"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."

- Muhammad Ali

"Difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter."

- Dan Reeves

"Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement."

- Charles F. Kettering

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward."

- Vernon Sanders Law

"If you can't accept losing, you can't win."

- Vince Lombardi

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records."

- William Arthur Ward

"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way."

- Babe Ruth

"The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my 11 best, but my best 11."

- Knute Rockne

"The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing."

- Jackie Joyner Kersee

""It gets easier. Every day, it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day. That's the hard part.""

- The running baboon from Bojack Horseman

""It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.""

- Edmund Hillary

"I see the vision of a runner ahead of me, maybe just 15, 20 meters ahead of me, and the cadence of that runner, which is actually me in the future, is a little quicker, so if I am going (his rhythm/breathing), then my ghost runner, the vision of me, ahead of me, like opening up and just going for it, is quicker."

- Gabe Jennings

"Mind is everything. Muscle - pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind."

- Paavo Nurmi

"Your mind is what makes everything else work."

- Marion Jones

"The battles that count aren`t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that`s where it`s at."

- Jesse Owens

"My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: "Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win... channel your energy. Focus."

- Carl Lewis

"The only one who can beat me is me."

- Michael Johnson

"Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like muscles of the body."

- Lynn Jennings

"You must see yourself run the race over and over, time and time again. You must put yourself in critical positions and see how you would react in those positions before the race so when and if they do happen, the feedback is automatic."

- Rodney Milburn

"My concentration level blocks out everything. Concentration is why some athletes are better than others. You develop that concentration in training and concentrate in a meet."

- Edwin Moses

"To be number one, you have to train like you're number two."

- Maurice Greene

"The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running."

- Wilma Rudolph

"One chance is all you need."

- Jesse Owens

"A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts."

- Steve Prefontaine

"When you envision yourself doing something, you’ll be surprised at how much that helps you to actually do it."

- Selim Nurudeen

"Scientists have proven that it's impossible to long-jump 30 feet, but I dont listen to that kind of talk. Thoughts like that have a way of sinking into your feet."

- Carl Lewis

"Embrace the art of visualization and paint a vivid picture of your success."

- Carl Lewis

"Ask yourself: 'Can I give more?'. The answer is usually: 'Yes'."

- Paul Tergat

"Few of us know what we are capable of doing... we have never pushed ourselves hard enough to find out."

- Alfred A. Montapert

"They think because I am small, they can do what they want to do to me. But I am not weak. If I lower my shoulder and they lower they're shoulder, they're going to go down."

- Michael Johnson

"Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push beyond where we thought we could go. It helps us to find out what we are made of. This is what we do. This is what it's all about."

- Patti Sue Plumer

"No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable."

- Roger Bannister

"You have to take a leap of faith to realize a dream, and this is something that a lot of people aren't willing to do."

- Ron Bramlett

"All pressure is self-inflicted. It's what you make of it or how you let it rub off on you."

- Sebastian Coe

"Find the good. It`s all around you. Find it, showcase it and you`ll start believing in it."

- Jesse Owens

"The ultimate winners are willing to take ultimate risks."

- Brooks Johnson

"If I am still standing at the end of the race, hit me with a board and knock me down, because that means I didnt run hard enough."

- Steve Jones

"A lifetime of training for just ten seconds."

- Jesse Owens

"I believe you make life what you want it to be; you can reach goals you never thought you could if you keep at it."

- Mike Shine

"Run so hard you come in with bloody feet and missing toenails."

- Rob De Castella

"Pressure is nothing more than the shadow of great opportunity."

- Michael Johnson

"Every hurdler I know has hit a hurdle hard, or fell over one. . . . Don’t be afraid to fall, because you’re going to. It’s what you do afterwards that matters."

- Laron Bennett

"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those doing it."

- Chinese proverb

"Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play."

- Mike Singletary

"Don't tell me how rocky the sea is, just bring the ship in."

- Lou Holtz

"I think the greatest amount of pressure is the pressure I place on myself. So in a way I chose to be alone."

- Cathy Freeman

"The trials on the road to world harmony are no greater than the courage of those who accept the challenge."

- Carl Lewis

"The only thing that matters is the finish line."

- Mary Cain

"A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide."

- Mickey Mantle

"You don't play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball."

- Bobby Knight

"The first thing a hurdler learns is how to fall."

- Tonie Campbell

"As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round."

- Ben Hogan

"In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened."

- Tommy Lasorda

"All top international athletes wake up in the morning feeling tired and go to bed feeling very tired."

- Brendan Foster

"I never really worried about those hurdles. They were just standing there, and I was always zooming past them just to get back on the ground again."

- Rodney Milburn

"To describe the agony of a marathon to someone who has never run it is like trying to explain color to someone who was born blind."

- Jerome Drayton

"I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up."

- Jesse Owens

"The mental part is the hardest part."

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"You got to try and reach for the stars or Enter the 'Gamma Flow State' - Brainwave Enhancement to achieve the unreachable."

- Cathy Freeman

"The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other… but to be with each other."

- Christopher McDougall

"I am now a legend. I am also the greatest athlete to live. I am in the same category as Michael Johnson."

- Usain Bolt at the 2012 Olympics

"The gun goes off and everything changes... the world changes... and nothing else really matters."

- Patti Sue Plummer

"The art form is to become one with the hurdle, to make it your friend, and I embraced that process."

- Renaldo Nehemiah

"I am going to go and leave my blood all over the track."

- Nick Rogers

"Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best."

- Michael Johnson

"The key thing in the hurdles is that it’s a development event. You might not do a damn thing one year, and then things just click. You really can’t discount athletes who may not stand out immediately. It may take two or three years for an athlete to develop."

- Kevin Young

""Shut up legs""

- Jens Voight

"Some seek the comfort of their therapist’s office, others head for the corner pub, but I chose running as my therapy."

- Dean Karnazes

"People could see in me who I am now, an Olympic champ, the best in the world."

- Cathy Freeman

"There is magic in misery. Just ask any runner."

- Dean Karnazes

"The pain of running relieves the pain of living."

- Jacqueline Simon Gunn

"True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit."

- Alexander Pope

"There is the truth about the marathon and very few of you have written the truth. Even if I explain to you, you'll never understand it, you're outside of it."

- Douglas Wakiihuri

"If you’re afraid of falling, hitting your knees, afraid of the obstacle, or of any other obstacles in your life, don’t try the hurdles."

- Reggie Towns

"The more I run, the more I like it, and the more I like myself."

- Patience Lister

"The important thing was that I got the win. It's good for confidence and the season."

- Usain Bolt

"You’re a dancer; don’t strain, don’t force it. Be one with the hurdle, let it happen, relax while running fast."

- Renaldo Nehemiah

"Hurdlers are sprinters with a problem. They're not satisfied just to sprint. Anybody can sprint, some not as well as others of course, but anybody can sprint. Not everybody can run hurdles. There's an extra dimension involved. Hurdlers would make a good subject for a thesis in psychology - they are of a persuasion that just needs an extra dimension."

- Denny Moyer

"In order to be great, you have to learn from greatness, which is what I have tried to do."

- David Oliver

"Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing it."

- Jesse Owens

"It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close."

- Jesse Owens

"I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever."

- Jesse Owens

"God gets you to the plate, but once you're there you're on your own."

- Ted Williams

"My mom is great and I make sure that we pray together before every race. She helps me put everything in perspective and remind me of the real reason I run."

- Allyson Felix

"Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety."

- Jack Nicklaus

"People have a moral standard about what they will do and will not do. At the end of the day, someone who cheats has a lower moral standard than someone who does not. And they will cheat in other areas of life as well."

- Carl Lewis

"It's a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square."

- Pete Rose

"The only way to prove that you're a good sport is to lose."

- Ernie Banks

"The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back."

- John Madden

"A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning."

- Chuck Noll

"Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game."

- Donald Trump

"Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club, don't you?"

- Ben Hogan

"A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety."

- Aesop

"Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hittin."

- Yogi Berra

"When we step into the grace of God, we step out of the confinements of time."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

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

- Jesse Owens

""26.2 miles is a helluva long way for everything to go right and a helluva long way for just one thing to go wrong. Legs feed the wolf. Pain is weakness leaving your body. Run the mile you're on. Some days my best is a PR, others it's just putting one foot in front of the other.""

""Run the day, don’t let it run you.""

""Pain is temporary, pride is forever.""

""You are stronger than you think.""

""The only way to finish is to start.""

""Keep going; your best run is yet to come.""

""One step at a time.""

""Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.""

""Run with your heart.""

""Chase your goals, not the competition.""

""Pain is weakness leaving your body.""

""Run the mile you are on.""

"Running teaches us to keep moving forward, one step at a time, especially in the most painful moments."

""Every mile is a memory.""

""The first mile is a lie""

""The first mile is a warm up. Mile two is a prick.""

""I don’t have to go for a run, I get to go for a run""

""Just stick with it. What seems hard now will one day be your warm-up.""

""The quicker you run, the quicker you’re done.""

""I often hear someone say I’m not a real runner. We are all runners, some just run faster than others. I’ve never met a fake runner.""

"No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch."

- Unknown

"Running is the answer. The question is irrelevant."

"I run because somehow completely exhausting myself is the most relaxing part of my day."

"Running reminds you that even in your weakest moments, you are strong."

"Don’t ask me why I run. Ask yourself why you don’t."

"The only bad run is the one that didn't happen."

"The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow."

"The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday."

"The voice in your head that says you can’t do this is a liar."

""Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.""

""Hills don’t go away. They wait.""

"Run fast, run slow, run far, run close—just run."

"Running is not about being better than someone else. It's about being better than you used to be."

"Running is nothing more than a series of arguments between the part of your brain that wants to stop and the part that wants to keep going."