Quotes from Roger Bannister

I wanted to be a neurologist. That seemed to be the most difficult, most intriguing, and the most important aspect of medicine, which had links with psychology, aggression, behavior, and human affairs.

No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed.

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

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.

Sport is not about being wrapped up in cotton wool. Sport as about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Sport, like all life, is about taking risks.

Sport, like all of life, is about taking your chances.

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.

If there was the opportunity to climb a mountain, or to go ballooning, or some adventurous activity, I would always be keen to do it. I loved the countryside.

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.

I raced supremely well. I felt I was as well fitted to do it as I had ever been, and as perhaps I might ever be. I went climbing three weeks before, because I was feeling fed up with running.

I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I came from such a simple origin, without any great privilege, and I would say I also wanted to make a mark. It wasn't until I was about 15 that I appeared in a race.

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

The essence of sports is that while you're doing it, nothing else matters, but after you stop, there is a place, generally not very important, where you would put it.

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.

The earth seemed almost to move with me…. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed.

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.

This--this was what made life a moment of quiet, the water falling in the fountain, the girl's voice...a moment of captured beauty. He who is truly wise will never permit such moments to escape.

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