Top 100 Running Quotes (2025 Update)

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

Also featured in: Perseverance Quotes, Quotes About Strength, Discipline Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Success, Athlete Quotes

2. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”

— Lance Armstrong

Also featured in: Perseverance Quotes, Goal Quotes, Athlete Quotes, Never Give Up Quotes, Mental Strength Quotes

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

— Christopher McDougall

Also featured in: Athlete Quotes, Motivational Workout Quotes, Fitness Quotes, Moving Forward Quotes

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

Also featured in: Feel Good Quotes, Encouragement Quotes, Motivational Workout Quotes, Exercise Quotes

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

— Dean Karnazes

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Courage Quotes, Persistence Quotes, Effort Quotes, Commitment Quotes

7. “Nothing will work unless you do.”

— Maya Angelou

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Attitude Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Work Ethic Quotes

8. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

— Haruki Murakami

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Short Quotes About Life

9. “Not all who wander are lost.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Fiction Quotes, Positive Short Quotes

10. “Injuries are our best teachers.”

— Scott Jurek

Also featured in: Athlete Quotes, Hurt Quotes

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

— Eric Thomas

Also featured in: Motivational Quotes, Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes, Startup Quotes, Success Quotes, Perseverance Quotes

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

— Henry Ford

Also featured in: Startup Quotes, Goal Quotes, Motivational Monday Quotes, Motivational Quotes About Life

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

— Hal Higdon

Also featured in: Feel Good Quotes, Wednesday Motivational Quotes, Motivational Workout Quotes

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

— Christopher McDougall

Also featured in: Short Inspiring Quotes, Wednesday Motivational Quotes, Friday Inspirational Quotes, Motivational Workout Quotes

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

— Steve Prefontaine

Also featured in: Discipline Quotes, Athlete Quotes, Effort Quotes, Motivational Workout Quotes

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

— Christopher McDougall

Also featured in: Motivational Workout Quotes

17. “Go fast enough to get there, but slow enough to see.”

— Jimmy Buffett

Also featured in: Experience Quotes, Short Quotes About Life, Enjoy Life Quotes, Adventure Quotes

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

— Steve Prefontaine

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Goal Quotes, Excellence Quotes, Effort Quotes, Motivational Workout Quotes

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

Also featured in: Motivational Quotes, Interesting Quotes, Emotional Quotes

20. “Life is for participating, not for spectating.”

— Kathrine Switzer

Also featured in: Action Quotes, Experience Quotes, Motivational Quotes About Life, Passion Quotes, Motivational Workout Quotes

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

— Paulius Jačionis

Also featured in: Fitness Quotes

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

Also featured in: Motivational Workout Quotes

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

Also featured in: Focus On Yourself Quotes, Exercise Quotes

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

— Steve Prefontaine

Also featured in: Persistence Quotes, Attitude Quotes, Quotes About Trying, Sports Quotes

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

— Steve Prefontaine

Also featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Grit Quotes, Sports Quotes

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

Also featured in: Inner Peace Quotes, Good Vibes Quotes

27. “Sometimes you just do things!”

— Scott Jurek

Also featured in: Short Motivational Quotes, Sports Quotes

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

Also featured in: Athlete Quotes, Fitness Quotes

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

— Christopher McDougall

Also featured in: Happy Quotes, Positive Motivation Quotes, Exercise Quotes

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

— Kathrine Switzer

Also featured in: Sports Quotes, Quotes About People, Exercise Quotes, Monday Inspirational Quotes

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

Also featured in: Loneliness Quotes, Solitude Quotes

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

— John Bingham

Also featured in: Miracle Quotes, Quotes About Trying, Sports Quotes, Fear Quotes

34. “I don’t think limits.”

— Usain Bolt

Also featured in: Impossible Quotes, Greatness Quotes, Fitness Quotes

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

— Emil Zatopek

Also featured in: Fitness Quotes

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

— Lori Culnane

Also featured in: Exercise Quotes

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

— Kathrine Switzer

Also featured in: Self-Worth Quotes, Fitness Quotes, Being Strong Quotes, Path Quotes

38. “Don’t run with your legs, run with your heart.”

— Dean Karnazes

Also featured in: Athlete Quotes, Monday Motivation Quotes, Fitness Quotes, Quotes About Heart

39. “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

Also featured in: Hard Work Quotes, Commitment Quotes, Sports Quotes, Determination Quotes

40. “I stopped worrying about the start. The end is what’s important.”

— Usain Bolt

41. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.”

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Positive Quotes, Inspirational Quotes, Life Lessons Quotes, Taking Action Quotes

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

— Dean Karnazes

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Suffering Quotes

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

— Haile Gebrselassie

Also featured in: Fitness Quotes

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

— William Sigei

45. “If you train your mind for running, everything else will be easy.”

— Amby Burfoot

Also featured in: Sports Quotes, Workout Quotes

46. “Running is my private time, my therapy, my religion.”

— Gail W. Kislevitz

Also featured in: Exercise Quotes

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

Also featured in: Sweet Quotes, Dreaming Big Quotes, Quotes About Dreams, Passion Quotes, Greatness Quotes

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

— Unknown