Inspirational Running Quotes to Keep You Moving

“Running” typically refers to the act of moving rapidly on foot, usually at a pace faster than walking. It’s a form of aerobic exercise that engages various muscles in the body and is popular for both recreational and competitive purposes. People may run for various reasons, such as improving cardiovascular health, building endurance, losing weight, or simply for the joy of it. It can be done on roads, trails, tracks, or treadmills, and it’s an activity that can be enjoyed solo or in groups.

Running Quotes

1. “You can keep going and your legs might hurt for a week, or you can quit and your mind will hurt for a lifetime.”
— Mark Allen

2. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”
— Lance Armstrong

3. “You don’t stop running because you get old, you get old because you stop running.”
— Christopher McDougall

4. “Success isn’t how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started.”
— Steve Prefontaine

5. “Running teaches us that we are capable of so much more than we ever imagined.”
— PattiSue Plumer

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

7. “Nothing will work unless you do.”
— Maya Angelou

8. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
— Haruki Murakami

9. “Not all who wander are lost.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien

10. “Injuries are our best teachers.”
— Scott Jurek

11. “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”
— Eric Thomas

12. “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.”
— Henry Ford

13. “The pride in finishing a marathon is much greater than all the pain endured during the marathon.”
— Hal Higdon

14. “Ask nothing from your running, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined.”
— Christopher McDougall

15. “Don’t let fatigue make a coward out of you.”
— Steve Prefontaine

16. “Go fast enough to get there, but slow enough to see.”
— Jimmy Buffett

17. “If you don’t have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain’t getting them.”
— Christopher McDougall

18. “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”
— Steve Prefontaine

19. “Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.”
— Anonymous

20. “Life is for participating, not for spectating.”
— Kathrine Switzer

21. “You never run alone. You run out with problems, you run back with solutions.”
— Paulius Jačionis

22. “If you can run six miles on a summer day, then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom.”
— Christopher McDougall

23. “When I’m running I don’t have to talk to anybody and don’t have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can’t do without.”
— Haruki Murakami

24. “Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”
— Steve Prefontaine

25. “The best pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die.”
— Steve Prefontaine

26. “The longer and farther I ran, the more I realized that what I was often chasing was a state of mind – a place where worries that seemed monumental melted away, where the beauty and timelessness of the universe, of the present moment, came into sharp focus.”
— Scott Jurek

27. “Sometimes you just do things!”
— Scott Jurek

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

29. “The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other, but to be with each other.”
— Christopher McDougall

30. “If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon.”
— Kathrine Switzer

31. “If one could run without getting tired I don’t think one would often want to do anything else.”
— C. S. Lewis

32. “All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.”
— Haruki Murakami

33. “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.”
— John Bingham

34. “I don’t think limits.”
— Usain Bolt

35. “If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.”
— Emil Zatopek

36. “Everything you ever wanted to know about yourself, you can learn in 26.2 miles.”
— Lori Culnane

37. “Don’t run with your legs, run with your heart.”
— Dean Karnazes

38. “All you need is the courage to believe in yourself and put one foot in front of the other.”
— Kathrine Switzer

39. “I stopped worrying about the start. The end is what’s important.”
— Usain Bolt

40. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
— Jim Rohn

41. “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

42. “Sometimes you’ve got to go through hell to get to heaven.”
— Dean Karnazes

43. “If you train your mind for running, everything else will be easy.”
— Amby Burfoot

44. “Learn to run when feeling the pain, then push harder.”
— William Sigei

45. “Running is my private time, my therapy, my religion.”
— Gail W. Kislevitz

46. “When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.”
— Haile Gebrselassie

47. “The human body has limitations. The human spirit is boundless.”
— Dean Karnazes

48. “Running is my meditation, mind flush, cosmic telephone, mood elevator and spiritual communion.”
— Lorraine Moller

49. “Believe in your dreams and that anything is possible.”
— Usain Bolt

50. “If you can’t win, make the fellow ahead of you break the record.”
— Unknown

51. “One chance is all you need.”
— Jesse Owens

52. “The only one who can beat me is me.”
— Michael Johnson

53. “There is magic in misery. Just ask any runner.”
— Dean Karnazes

54. “A runner must run with dreams in his heart.”
— Emil Zatopek

55. “Pain is the body’s way of ridding itself of weakness.”
— Dean Karnazes

56. “Part of a runner’s training consists of pushing back the limits of his mind.”
— Kenny Moore

57. “Running is alone time that lets my brain unspool the tangles that build up over days.”
— Rob Haneisen

58. “A race is a work of art.”
— Steve Prefontaine

59. “I’m a runner first before anything else.”
— Haile Gebrselassie

60. “What I like most about track is the feeling I get after a good run.”
— Steve Prefontaine

61. “A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.”
— Steve Prefontaine

62. “I run because it always takes me where I want to go.”
— Dean Karnazes

63. “I often hear someone say I’m not a real runner. We are all runners, some just run faster than others. I never met a fake runner.”
— Bart Yasso

64. “It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.”
— Carl Lewis

65. “Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.”
— Haile Gebrselassie

66. “Any goal worth achieving involves an element of risk.”
— Dean Karnazes

67. “Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it. ”
— Oprah Winfrey

68. “I always want to give more than I gave yesterday.”
— Allyson Felix

69. “We may train or peak for a certain race, but running is a lifetime sport.”
— Alberto Salazar

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

71. “Running is a simple, primitive act, and therein lays its power. For it is one of the few commonalities left between us as a human race.”
— Dean Karnazes

72. “It’s a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do.”
— Alan Sillitoe

73. “I always tell my athletes, don’t confuse difficulty with failure.”
— Eric Orton

74. “Indeed, the marathon wouldn’t be a big deal if it didn’t require a little blood, a lot of sweat, and perhaps a few tears.”
— Luke Humphrey

75. “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”
— John Muir

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

77. “Want a strong, solid relationship that is willing to go the distance? Get to know your running shoes.”
— Dean Karnazes

78. “But I also realize that winning doesn’t always mean getting first place; it means getting the best out of yourself.”
— Meb Keflezighi

79. “Triumph over adversity that’s what the marathon is all about. Nothing in life can’t triumph after that.”
— Kathrine Switzer

80. “Never underestimate the power that one good workout can have on your mind. Keeping the dream alive is half the battle.”
— Kara Goucher

81. “We all know that if you run, you are pretty much choosing a life of success because of it.”
— Deena Kastor

82. “Channel your energy. Focus.”
— Carl Lewis

83. “You are truly your own hero in running. It is up to you to have the responsibility and self-discipline to get the job done.”
— Adam Goucher

84. “Train where your fitness is NOW, not where you want to be.”
— Scott Jurek

85. “I love to run and I have some tips to keep it fresh and novel. I rarely use the same route twice. That keeps things new.”
— Dean Karnazes

86. “Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?”
— Peter Maher

87. “The marathon never ceases to be a race of joy, a race of wonder.”
— Hal Higdon

88. “You have to forget your last marathon before you try another. Your mind can’t know what’s coming.”
— Frank Shorter

89. “Sport, like all of life, is about taking your chances.”
— Roger Bannister

90. “I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.”
— Steve Prefontaine

91. “Nature’s arena has a way of humbling and energizing us.”
— Scott Jurek

92. “I work hard, and I do good, and I’m going to enjoy myself. I’m not going to let you restrict me.”
— Usain Bolt

93. “Running! If there’s any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can’t think of what it might be.”
— Joyce Carol Oates

94. “We all have bad days and bad workouts, when running gets ugly, when split times seem slow, when you wonder why you started. It will pass.”
— Hal Higdon

95. “Of all the races, there is no better stage for heroism than a marathon.”
— George A. Sheehan

96. “We are designed to run and we increase our chance of daily happiness when we do so.”
— Jeff Galloway

97. “The mile has all the elements of a drama.”
— Roger Bannister

98. “If you keep chasing your dreams, one day you’ll catch them.”
— Dean Karnazes

99. “I am a big believer in visualization. I run through my races mentally so that I feel even more prepared.”
— Allyson Felix

100. “Great is the victory, but the friendship of all is greater.”
— Emil Zatopek