Top 70 Haile Gebrselassie Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

Featured in: Dedication Quotes, Fitness Quotes, Running Quotes

2. “When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

Featured in: Fitness Quotes, Running Quotes

3. “I’m a runner first before anything else.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

Featured in: Running Quotes

4. “I love running and I will always run.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

5. “You need three things to win: discipline, hard work and, before everything maybe, commitment. No one will make it without those three. Sport teaches you that.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

6. “When you promise something, you must fulfill it.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

7. “For me a day without training is like a day without eating.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

8. “Always, if you win mentally, you can win physically as well.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

9. “Life is a kind of struggle. Life is a sort of fight.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

10. “My school was six miles away from where I lived on the farm. I had to walk and run, there and back every day, through gorges and over rivers. If I was late, there was a very big stick waiting for me.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

11. “First, do enough training. Then believe in yourself and say: I can do it. Tomorrow is my day. And then say: the person in front of me, he is just a human being as well; he has two legs, I have two legs, that is all. That is mentally how you prepare.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

12. “The marathon always starts after 30K. That’s where the problems start. You start without any problems, without any pain. All the pain comes after 30K. Sometimes, it’s possible to have pain even in the finger.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

13. “You lose the speed before the stamina.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

14. “I think if you come first with a new world record, that is the best.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

15. “That is not enough. Sport has been great for me, a great learning place that if you want to achieve you can, even if you are from the poorest part of Africa.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

16. “Athletics is in my blood.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

17. “All athletes need three things: commitment, discipline and hard work. Without that it’s hard to keep running.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

18. “If you’re planning only to make money and nothing else, you’ll be broke.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

19. “I will always listen to my coaches. But first I listen to my body. If what they tell me suits my body, great. If my body doesn’t feel good with what they say, then always my body comes first.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

20. “He was not a runner, my father, but he was quick. I always remember it was very difficult to escape from him when he was angry. If he wanted to beat us he would always catch us. Even me, he could always catch me.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

21. “I find the business world hard.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

22. “The more you are getting older, you lose a little something. Of course there is another advantage, because of your long experience you can use it.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

23. “In the rainy season, sometimes to get to the first lesson we had to run really quick, because we had to cross the river to school and we’d have to go up and down the bank to find a place to cross because there is no bridge.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

24. “Eradicate poverty. This is all that matters in my country. When I am out training I think about this a lot; when I am running it is going over in my mind. As a country we cannot move forward until we eradicate poverty.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

25. “In my life I do a lot of things but I never forget my training.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

26. “When you talk about world record times, you have to understand that everything must be perfect the weather, the course, the temperature. It is not always enough to be in good shape.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

27. “My father thought sport was something fun – he didn’t know it was a way to make money.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

Featured in: Fun Quotes

28. “When I had no shoes I was comfortable – I used to run barefoot. When I wore shoes it was difficult. To run in shoes was ok, but at the beginning of my career it was hard.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

29. “I can’t change everything by myself but I can be one of the people who are trying to change the situation.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

30. “I feel a social responsibility. We need to open people’s eyes. There is a lack of education in Ethiopia.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

31. “I have seen things few of my countrymen have. The first time I went on an aeroplane I couldn’t work out how the lavatories worked up in the sky.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

32. “My father didn’t think running was sensible. He told me running is just wasting time.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

33. “It is not my duty to spend my money in my country, but it is what I want to do. There is nowhere else I would like to invest.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

34. “This hand is not very active always, because it was in this hand that I carried my books. My carrying hand was always my strongest. Now I think my other hand has developed more muscles from signing all those autographs.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

35. “If your body is damaged, wounded, it can be fixed, but if inside, mentally, you are wounded you cannot fix it, it’s hard.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

36. “Many people know that Ethiopia is poor. When I break a world record, maybe people get to know something else about Ethiopia, something good. We can’t make planes or cars, we don’t have the materials. We do what we can.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

37. “When I wake up at 5 in the morning is it just to jog? Definitely not, I give it all of my efforts.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

38. “You know, I want to help my country. Definitely I can help them, simply by winning races. Sure, they can follow my path to a good career. But for me it is not enough. I want to be more than that. In everything I want to be a role model.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

39. “When I run in Ethiopia, I look out and see eucalyptus trees and rivers.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

40. “You know for me when I promise something I want to deliver. If you don’t, you have to disappear.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

41. “You must do as your people do. If my people are poor, I must be poor. People ask me, ‘Why don’t you find a personal coach or a private car?’ I can’t. Then I won’t be part of my people.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

42. “In the marathon a crazy athlete can just keep pushing from the beginning, at a championship you don’t need a time just to win the race.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

43. “I wanted to experience New York, to look up and see buildings.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

44. “I want to go down in history.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

45. “You know the marathon in my country is just exceptional. It’s like soccer in England. If England win the world cup and Ethiopia win the marathon – it’s the same.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

46. “Since I achieved something, running has exploded in my country. For me sometimes it is difficult even to know who the athletes are who are competing at the highest level. There are thousands.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

47. “I was the kind of child who worked hard every day with the cows and sheep – I was a very aggressive boy.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

48. “At the moment I am a little bit politician, yes. I think that could be my next step. It is not because I want power, it is because of what I think I could do for the people.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

49. “Why should I say I will retire in three or four years? You retire the very moment you utter those words.”

— Haile Gebrselassie

50. “If I don’t train enough, of course I’m nervous.”

— Haile Gebrselassie