Inspirational Running Quotes & Sayings

Be the person you want people to one day say you were. And start now. Because the timeless truth remains that time is running out for all of us, ready or not. — A.J. Compton

If you schlep a shit job everyday, keep and feed a little secret life
whether it's writing, art, running, music, your thoughts. It's yours. — Don Roff

Ingrid Kristiansen then has smashed the world record, running the 5000 metres in 14:58.89. Truly amazing. Incidentally, this is a personal best for Ingrid Kristiansen. — David Coleman

It is very interesting how humanity has linked love to the lack of freedom. I think that when you find love, it is because you have become so free that you were able to truly find it. Love is a wild and running thing. Only the free can find what is wild and running. You become so free, that you are able to truly love. A life of bondage is a life lived without love. — C. JoyBell C.

Some journeys make you realize that you are running for a wrong goal. — Nicko Shoid

Don't run away from the world. The world is God. Don't run towards the world. God is the void. Don't be afraid of the complexities of this life, nor the stark simplicity of death. — Frederick Lenz

When you see and know that your wellspring is an Eternal Source, and not other people around you, or your past experiences, not even your life story, that is when you are able to truly give to others, without running out and without feeling empty. Because I see God in everything that I touch and feel and think and because I believe that He sees me in everything, too, hence I am able to give to others without thinking of myself as limited source. What I have doesn't come from others, it doesn't come from my life story and it doesn't come from a box. What I have comes from a wellspring, an Eternal Source. The good news is that it never runs out, there is plenty for all and for everyone. — C. JoyBell C.

The new Kenyans. There are always new Kenyans. — Noureddine Morceli

How can we expect to be happy when we have no peace of mind, when our mind is constantly jumping from the present to the past? When your mind is constantly running and filled with anxiety and fear, where is the freedom? You are stuck in the prison of your mind, stuck in thoughts and feelings from yesterday, from five years ago. There comes a time when everyone has to stop, look deep, breathe and let go. — Evan Sutter

Running gives me a clearer perspective on the world ... I've always seen the world by running, and that has allowed me to view things in a different way. Places look different in the early-morning hours, when the streets are deserted. I've smelled crabs boiling on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco on my way to the Golden Gate Bridge, watched the sun rise over Diamond Head in Hawaii, and seen deer grazing on the Alps in St. Moritz, Switzerland. I clearly remember turning to my husband, Jack, in one of these places and saying, 'People don't know what they're missing.' — Grete Waitz

Running away can also be running to. — Deb Caletti

Every day is a fresh start; don't measure yourself by yesterday's troubles. — Dagny Scott Barrios

There came a time in everyone's life when they realized that in spite of how hard they'd been running from themselves, everywhere they went, there they were: Addictions and compulsions were nothing but marching bands of distraction, masking truths that were unpleasant, but ultimately undeniable. — J.R. Ward

The Tarahumara would party like this all night, then rouse themselves the next morning to face off in a running race that could last not two miles, not two hours, but two full days. According to the Mexican historian Francisco Almada, a Tarahumara champion once ran 435 miles, the equivalent of setting out for a jog in New York City and not stopping till you were closing in on Detroit. — Christopher McDougall

But I'm not running away. I'm running toward... toward adventure, toward discovery, toward diversity. And while I was in Mexico I discovered something intruiging: Once I leave the U.S., I am not bound by the rules of my culture. And when I am a foreigner in another country, I am exempt from the local rules. This extraordinary situation means that there are no rules in my life. I am free to live by the standards and ideals and rules I create for myself. — Rita Golden Gelman

Freedom is about life or death, I would rather die fighting for it than die running away from the oppressor — Peter Mutanda

Every run is a work of art, a drawing on each day's canvas. Some runs are shouts and some runs are whispers. Some runs are eulogies and others celebrations. When you're angry, a run can be a sharp slap in the face. When happy, a run is your song. And when your running progresses enough to become the chrysalis through which your life is viewed, motivation is almost beside the point. Rather, it's running that motivates you for everything else the day holds. — Dagny Scott Barrios

Life is a running car with an unfillable fuel tank. — Debasish Mridha

Heartbreak is awful, but truth be told, if you have never had your heart broken, then you aren't fully living. I want you to ask yourself this question because I want you to bask in the fullness of life. And in order to feel life - to experience life - you need to take risks. When you open your heart, you risk having it broken; or stated more accurately it will be broken. But do it anyway; open yourself up. If you don't, you will never know what it means to live, to love and to be with others. — Jacqueline Simon Gunn

How to unravel the knot of reality? Slowly and patiently. You cannot run away from it. You cannot run towards it. Yet truth runs in your footsteps. It is the face in the mirror, the light of the sun, the winter rainstorms, the heat of summer in the city — Frederick Lenz

The sunrise was the most amazing part of the day. The quiet of the block seemed even more silent when I watched the light make its way effortlessly into the world. Its serenity bathed itself in the rose colored light above bleeding into the sky. The road was vulnerable. The pink and the orange seeped onto the street and lit up my path, just for me. I saw it in front of my feet and it pulled me forward, my footsteps hitting the gravel. I wanted to run into it, to dive feet first and plunge into the harmony of my safe haven. It serenaded me into a calm sense of security. A calm idea that everything was just the way it was supposed to, and everything else, would always get better. Siempre mejorando. — Adriana Rodrigues

You understand reality while everyone else is running around confused and angry and upset because they think reality is something happening to them rather than something they are making every moment with every thought. — Andrew Hussie

She hasn't run faster than herself before — Zola Budd

Talking is great, but don't ignore the value of listening. Pay attention to the words being spoken. Some people just love the sound of their own voice. And, when another person speaks, they are only anticipating to compete, challenge, or question what is being said. You can miss out on some important wisdom always running your mouth. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

A running machine, that glides over mud, crud and goop. — Ed Eyestone

Never get so stuck in being responsible and mindful that you can't let it all go and run off chasing your private dream, if it leads to the shiny worlds, the worlds of beauty. — Frederick Lenz

You'll never get ahead, if your always running behind ... — Jeremy Marcus Coatesoates

Grow deep roots to harvest rich fruit! When your roots run deep, you cannot help but bear the fruit of the Spirit. — Michael Beckwith

Sometimes, I experience God like this beautiful nothing', he said, 'and it seems then as though the whole point of life is just to rest in it. To contemplate it, and love it, and eventually to disappear into it. And then, other times, it's just the opposite. God feels like a presence that engorges everything. I come out here and it seems the divine is running rampant. That the marsh, the whole of creation, is some dance God is doing and we're meant to step into it. That's all.'" - Whit — Sue Monk Kidd

Today, I run for pure, absolute joy. — Lopez Lomong

Most of us have a soundtrack running in the background of our lives. I access that soundtrack when I write. — Robin M. Helm

Struggling and suffering are the essence of a life worth living. If you're not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you're not demanding more from yourself - expanding and learning as you go - you're choosing a numb existence. You're denying yourself an extraordinary trip. — Dean Karnazes

If all you do is run every time, stop for a minute and take a glance at your back; you may have an idea of what you've been running from — Eve Lee Myself

I step outside, easy at first... there is noise; I don't hear it. There are people; I don't see them... I see the water; I am alongside it. There is a big hill; I conquer it. A mile of grass; I fly across it. With each step I am stronger, and then faster. My body engages; I am really flying; I am one with the road, but I no longer feel it. With every step forward I am faster and freer. Nothing can touch me; no one can find me. What I find is the truth. I find myself... I am a runner. — Jacqueline Simon Gunn

We knew not where we were going. We only knew that we must run, run to the end of the world, run to the end of our days. — Ayn Rand

It has been a wonderful experience to compete in the Olympic Games and to bring home a gold medal. But since I have been a young lad, I have had my eyes on a different prize. You see, each one of us is in a greater race than any I have run in Paris, and this race ends when God gives out the medals. — Eric Liddell

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

Who knew it was in my power to make anyone so happy? Or that I could ever be so happy myself? My moods were a slingshot; after being locked-down and anesthetized for years my heart was zinging and slamming itself around like a bee under a glass, everything bright, sharp, confusing, wrong - but it was a clean pain as opposed to the dull misery that had plagued me for years under the drugs like a rotten tooth, the sick dirty ache of something spoiled. The clarity was exhilarating; it was as if I'd removed a pair of smudged-up glasses that fuzzed everything I saw. All summer long I had been practically delirious: tingling, daffy, energized, running on gin and shrimp cocktail and the invigorating whock of tennis balls. And all I could think was Kitsey, Kitsey, Kitsey! — Donna Tartt

There may not be any romance to mental illness but who needs romance when the preferable route is agency? The prevailing conversation around mental health issues is agency and the lack thereof on the part of the mentally ill. But what do you do if you're a paid-up member of the mentally ill populace in question? Do you curl up into a ball and give up? No, you look for solutions. Ultimately, it's about keeping despair at bay and sometimes simple things like running, taking up a hobby, doing charity work, painting or, in my case, writing can be a galvanizing part of the recovery process. Keeping the brain and the body active can give life a semblance of pleasure and hope. This is what writing has done for me. I took every traumatic element of my condition and channelled it into something useful. — Diriye Osman

There are all these people running all over the planet who don't see what life is for, what their own lives are about, because they don't see psychically. Therefore, they miss most of the beauty of life. — Frederick Lenz

Winning isn't about finishing in first place. It isn't about beating the others. It is about overcoming yourself. Overcoming your body, your limitations, and your fears. Winning means surpassing yourself and turning your dreams into reality. — Kilian Jornet

I have to race because racing is a part of me. But I had to learn to race from a place of joy. Not pain. Not sorrow. Not anger. Not to fix things I can't control. But for a connection with other people. With the wilderness. With myself. — Erin Beresini

They say a good love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water, and pats you on top of the head. But I say a good love is one that casts you into the wind, sets you ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a phoenix; the kind that cuts you loose like a wildfire and you can't stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch! I say that's a good love; one that burns and flies, and you run with it! — C. JoyBell C.

Cleverness is egocentric, dramatic, gives you an illusion of success. We are always running behind it and ultimately suffer. Whereas simplicity is spiritual, blissful, not dramatic, simple but joyful and gives inner peace. Which is our ultimate goal. — Debasish Mridha

It can't be more than a quarter of a mile to the finish, but it seems to go on forever. Do I really have to do this? My legs are entirely dead. Would it really matter if I stopped here?
But I know I'd regret it if I did, so I plod leadenly on, distracting myself...with the thought that, whatever troubles I may have been carrying around in my head before the race, I have now entirely forgotten what they were. This thought is rather refreshing. Whatever physical pains it has involved, this ordeal has utterly absorbed me, forcing my brain to focus on the kind of concerns for which it evolved - navigation, survival, balance, digging deep - rather than on the fretful urban anxieties to which it has become habituated. Reconnecting with your inner animal, I suppose you could call it; and it feels good. Especially when, blissfully, I catch sight of the finish. — Richard Askwith

It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn't seem to make sense. Some day, however, we shall understand.
In looking back over the years we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God. — Maria Augusta Von Trapp

Outside of these doors, it is the real world. Someone tries to get you to do something wrong, run. — Ray Lewis

Is it not true that the clever rogue is like the runner who runs well for the first half of the course, but flags before reaching the goal: he is quick off the mark, but ends in disgrace and slinks away crestfallen and uncrowned. The crown is the prize of the really good runner who perseveres to the end. — Plato

You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else does. — Philip Pullman

In down times I do things like go for a long bike ride or run. The other thing I'm doing in that quiet time is just observing. — Robin Williams

Recognize that there's something AMAZING about you. Everyone has something that comes very natural for them - natural gifts and talents. That gift/talent is that thing or things that comes easy for you, but hard for most. The greatness that is stored within was given to you, because it was meant to be used. Whether you've been running from it or haven't discovered it yet, it's there. It's your job to discover and master it. It wasn't given to you in vain, it's part of your purpose. — Yvonne Pierre

If you don't think you were born to run you're not only denying history. You're denying who you are. — Christopher McDougall

A lot of people don't realize that not everybody gets high. — Molly Ringwald

If running a marathon excites you, create space in your life for it. Adding a new commitment means recalibrating different areas of your world. Logging more miles as your race date approaches means less time invested in other pursuits. Not forever, just during the months you train. Too, you will find how training fits into your world serves not only crossing the finish but other areas of life. — Gina Greenlee

Islam and Christianity promise eternal paradise to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, certainly, the hope of a better life to come. But there's a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seem running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven of fear of hell, but because He is God. — John Green

Throughout your career people will try to distract you. Some will scream at you, others will say things behind your back, and a few feral animals will literally try to throw their stiletto heel in in your lane and trip you. Keep your eyes straight ahead and just run your race. — Sharyn Alfonsi

I hated him, loved him, wanted him, and yet I wished him away. So many conflicting emotions of wants and needs. So much fear. Not because of him, but because of myself - of how deep my feelings and desires were running, and how much I would fall if I happened to lose my grip. — J.C. Reed

When someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them. — Haruki Murakami

If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. — Steve Prefontaine

Don't follow the crowd. The crowd doesn't get there. They just run round and around in a crazy race. It never ends. — Frederick Lenz

Music is my life. Music runs through my veins. Music inspires me. Music is a part of me. Music is all around us. Music soothes me. Music gives me hope when I lose faith. Music comforts me. Music is my refuge. — Demi Lovato

Arrogant S.O.B.s run the world. A performer can never have too much self-confidence. The best in every field are likely to strike most people as irrationally confident, but that's how they got to the top. — John Eliot

I was 21 and had spent the last few years in Stanford University Engineering School at California. Many people advised me to take up a nice, cushy job rather than face the challenges of running a hydrogenated oil business. Looking back, I am glad I decided to take charge instead. Essentially leadership begins from within. It is a small voice that tells you where to go when you feel lost. If you believe in that voice, you believe in yourself. — Azim Premji

If you learn to lead your life strategically and strongly, you can overcome the opposition. But running away, you never overcome anything. The pathway to enlightenment is for the warrior, the samurai. — Frederick Lenz

Running away, avoiding life's battles or giving up robs you of the opportunity to grow and be stronger. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Get out from your house, from your cave, from your car, from the place you feel safe, from the place that you are. Get out and go running, go funning, go wild, get out from your head and get growing, dear child. — Dallas Clayton

I've run less risk driving my way across country than eating my way across it. — Duncan Hines

For those of you who think that I have my life altogether, I definitely do not. Every season brings new challenges. For example, since I had my fifth child, I am notoriously 5-10 minutes late everywhere no matter how hard I try to be on time. I would like to say that I am "fashionably" late, but that isn't the truth either. Running in a mad dash in a parking lot (all holding hands of course) to make it somewhere 5 minutes late (instead of 6 minutes cause that makes a big difference) while one child is missing shoes and my hair is going in every direction. Yep, that is my family. — Tamara L. Chilver

Making yourself a corporation (or just thinking of yourself in that way) reinforces the idea of professionalism because it separates the artist-doing-the-work from the will-and-consciousness-running-the-show. — Steven Pressfield

You can run for cover, you can run for help. You can run to your lover, but you can't ever run from yourself. — Tanya Tucker

Life is for participating, not for spectating. — Kathrine Switzer

Making it through the ceiling to the other side was simply a matter of running on a path created by every other woman's footprints. — Shonda Rhimes

I'm just a regular guy who up until a few years ago totally underestimated what I felt I was capable of. Since then my experiences have taught me that we are all capable of the extraordinary in our lives. — Ray Zahab

Flight from God always leads downward. It culminates not in the vivacious life we imagined but in what amounts only to stagnant sleep. It's why so many people seem to exist without ever really living. In fact, they aren't really living; they're only going through the motions - rarely if ever experiencing the internal shalom they were designed to enjoy from God, because they're running from him. — Tullian Tchividjian

Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear. — Rumi

If you keep looking at your business wishes as delusional dreams you will end up running just another one of them. If you get inspired by your business wishes then plan to find a way and people to make it happen, you will end up mastering a second to none organization. — Sameh Elsayed

Contrary to a common myth, while there are general guidelines, there is no exact 'right' way to run ... I am amazed by the many ways people move forward. — Grete Waitz

To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running — Richard Branson

Nessa had never really felt truly beautiful before, but tonight she not only understood that she was beautiful, she understood that everyone was. That for all the competition and fear and knowing that the next runner was coming up behind you, she had been missing out on how beautiful life could be. She should have been watching and appreciating others instead of waiting inside herself for the right time to shine. The time was now. — C.D. Bell

You panic button collector. You clock of beautiful ticks. You run out the door if you need to. You flock to the front row of your own class. You feather everything until you know you can always, always shake like a leaf on my family tree and know you belong here. You belong here and everything you feel is okay. Everything you feel is okay. — Andrea Gibson

Some people call reading an escape, but it's not - it's embracing the true reality of the best parts of who we are. It's not running away; it's running toward the thing we wish we could be, the thing we strive to be, the thing we never can be, but the thing which we always must try to become if we want to be something more than we are. — Sean Gibson

Long Distance training can be a positive & constructive form of selfishness. After all, once you're at the starting line, you're there by yourself. No one can run a single step for you. No one can jump in & help you. No one but you can make the decisions about what to do to keep going. It's all up to you. — John Bingham

Every second you spend holding someone else back is time not running the race yourself. — Rebecca Murphy

Running is about finding your inner peace, and so is a life well lived. — Dean Karnazes

If you stand right at the edge of the night sky, some place where one o'clock leaves to meet two, the breeze will carry your words up to the stars. And they'll swallow your secrets until its time to hand them over to the truths in the sky- the ones that draw maps in the black.

They carve their answers into the backs of my hands, the grooves of the words running deep in my palms. — Marlen Komar

Sometimes you might miss that person, sometimes you'll feel like running back to them ... sometimes you'll suffer from unbearable pain but sometimes you have to forget what you feel. And simply remember what you deserve, smile and move on! — Nehali Lalwani

Climbing in the Spirit is accompanied by kneeling, and not by running; by surrender, and not by determination. Despair of self leads to utter desperation; but beyond these mists lies the sunshine of God's presence. — V. Raymond Edman

But if I'm it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I'm going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield. — Rick Yancey

The whole trend and quality of anyone's life is determined in the long run by the choices that are made. — Norman Vincent Peale

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy - the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light. — Brene Brown

Go to inspirational meetings, get to know men and women who are doing inspiring things. Above all, run as hard as you can from the cynics and gripers and the negativists. They are not going anywhere. You are. — Norman Vincent Peale

EVERYONE deserves to be happy. But no one gets there by freaking out or sulking or running. So. Here's a tissue. Clean yourself up and start back at the beginning. — A.S. King

It's like saying you're fixed in the past, and
you're running out of time. Every moment is only the beginning of
something new — Priscille Sibley

Coaching is an art and I'm not going to let anyone change me. — Marty Stern

Everything you need is already inside. — Bill Bowerman

According to Aristophanes in Plato's The Banquet, in the ancient world of legend there were three types of people.
In ancient times people weren't simply male or female, but one of three types : male/male, male/female or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangment and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everyone in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing half. — Haruki Murakami

I am also involved with all the acquisitions and overall strategy. Now it's true, I don't run operations. But I've never really run operations. I've never had the endurance to run sales. The whole idea of selling to the customer just isn't my personality. I'm an engineer, tell me why something isn't working or is and I am curious. — Larry Ellison

But such a person also has that annoying voice in the back of her head constantly reminding her that merely "coasting by" in life isn't an accomplishment. — Dawn Dais

I am like a blind runner, just show me the path and I will do the running — Vikas Rao

Don't bother just to be better than others. Try to be better than yourself. — William Faulkner