Quotes by Roger Bannister

About Roger Bannister:

Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister is an English former middle-distance athlete, physician and academic, who ran the first sub-four-minute mile.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I've always been very impatient. At age 10 I frankly found life boring, and I can remember age 9 having the awful thought, as it seems now looking back on it, A war! That should liven things up a bit!

Roger Bannister

I was involved in music, acting, and some running, but my firm wish was to become a doctor. That was the formative age when I had decided on the pattern of my career.

Roger Bannister

It's amazing that more people have climbed Mount Everest than have broken the 4-minute mile.

Roger Bannister

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

Roger Bannister

I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.

Roger Bannister

I found longer races boring. I found the mile just perfect.

Roger Bannister

I raced supremely well. I felt I was as well fitted to do it as I had ever been, and as perhaps I might ever be. I went climbing three weeks before, because I was feeling fed up with running.

Roger Bannister

I think that is a universal adolescent feeling, trying to find your place. The adolescent who is perfectly adjusted to his environment, I've yet to meet.

Roger Bannister

I wanted to be a neurologist. That seemed to be the most difficult, most intriguing, and the most important aspect of medicine, which had links with psychology, aggression, behavior, and human affairs.

Roger Bannister

If there was the opportunity to climb a mountain, or to go ballooning, or some adventurous activity, I would always be keen to do it. I loved the countryside.

Roger Bannister

It had always been a British preoccupation to hold this mile record.

Roger Bannister

You get very tired, and there was a certain amount of pain and you slow up. Your legs are so tired that you are in fact slowing. If you don't keep running, keep your blood circulating, the muscles stop pumping the blood back and you get dizzy.

Roger Bannister

I couldn't disappoint people. I did not want to fail and exhaust myself, because I was the kind of runner who trained so little that I couldn't race again within another 10 days.

Roger Bannister

I was playing rugby and the other games English school children do, and there was an event in which races were run, and I won these by a considerable margin.

Roger Bannister

My athleticism was really the core to social acceptance, because in those days the overwhelming number of students came from more of a public school background than I did.

Roger Bannister

The Athletic Association competed against the University. So there was an event. You cannot break world records unless it is an established event, and you have three timekeepers, and the whole thing is organized.

Roger Bannister

Your spikes, which were really quite long then, would catch the material of the track and your shoe would get heavier. I was simply filing them down and rubbing some graphite on the spikes. I thought I would run more effectively.

Roger Bannister

Beating John Landy was my defining race.

Roger Bannister

My family actually lived in the same village for about 400 years. They had great stability until the last century. People lived and intermarried in small villages.

Roger Bannister

Our house was bombed, and the roof fell in. We were sitting under the stairs of the basement, and we were quite safe, but it brought home the realization. In two nights 400 people were killed in small town.

Roger Bannister

Author Bio

  • NameRoger Bannister
  • DescriptionEnglish middle distance athlete
  • BornMarch 23, 1929
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionMiddle-distance Runner; Autobiographer; Physician
  • AwardsCommander Of The Order Of The British Empire