Roger Bannister

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

“We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves.”

“The obsession with running is really an obsession with the potential for more and more human endurance.”

“Sport is a wonderful metaphor for life. Of all the sports that I've done, there's a special place for running. It's a raw, basic sport that is all about the individual.”

“It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.”

“The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.”

“It's a question of whether you can make yourself ignore the pain. It's a question of whether you can make yourself do that little bit extra.”

“The gun explodes, and they are away. What a moment to be alive!”

“However ordinary each of us may seem, we are all in some way special, and can do things that are extraordinary, perhaps until then… even thought impossible.”

“The four-minute mile was a barrier, a psychological barrier. It was a challenge that had been there for a long time.”

“If you have a lemon, make lemonade.”

“The record was not a goal in itself, but a means to an end, a way of showing what the human body is capable of.”

“The essence of sport is that it is carried on for its own sake.”

“I'd rather be remembered for my work in neurology than my running.”

“I trained for less than three-quarters of an hour, maybe five days a week. I didn't have time to do more. It was all I could manage.”

“I felt at that moment that it was my chance to do one thing supremely well.”

“I was just a medical student, not a professional athlete.”