Top 100 Running Quotes (2023 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

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

— Lance Armstrong

Also featured in: Motivational Bodybuilding Quotes

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

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Sports Quotes

7. “Nothing will work unless you do.”

— Maya Angelou

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Attitude Quotes, Moving On Quotes

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

— Haruki Murakami

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes

9. “Not all who wander are lost.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Travel Quotes, Adventure Quotes

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

Also featured in: Motivational Quotes, Startup Quotes

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

— Henry Ford

Also featured in: Startup Quotes, Graduation Quotes

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

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Motivational Bodybuilding 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

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

— Kathrine Switzer

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

— Christopher McDougall

22. “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

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

— Steve Prefontaine

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

— Steve Prefontaine

25. “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

26. “Sometimes you just do things!”

— Scott Jurek

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

— Christopher McDougall

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

— Christopher McDougall

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

— Kathrine Switzer

30. “If one could run without getting tired I don’t think one would often want to do anything else.”

— C. S. Lewis

31. “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

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

— John Bingham

Also featured in: Sports Quotes

33. “I don’t think limits.”

— Usain Bolt

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

— Emil Zatopek

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

— Lori Culnane

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

— Usain Bolt

37. “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

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

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Positive Quotes, Inspirational Quotes, Inspiring Quotes

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

— Dean Karnazes

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

— Kathrine Switzer

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

— Dean Karnazes

Also featured in: Quotes About Heart

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

— William Sigei

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

— Haile Gebrselassie

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

— Amby Burfoot

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

— Gail W. Kislevitz

46. “The human body has limitations. The human spirit is boundless.”

— Dean Karnazes

47. “Running is my meditation, mind flush, cosmic telephone, mood elevator and spiritual communion.”

— Lorraine Moller

48. “Believe in your dreams and that anything is possible.”

— Usain Bolt

49. “One chance is all you need.”

— Jesse Owens

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

— Unknown