Roger Bannister Quotes

If I were to listen to people all the time when they say, 'Hey, this is a really high challenge, this is a high climb, the bar is pretty steep,' then I wouldn't have gone to the academy. I wouldn't have become an aircraft carrier pilot. I wouldn't have become a Navy SEAL for sure. And I probably wouldn't have applied to Harvard.

Just to show I had everything working against me: I'm small, my memory isn't all there, but I was a hard worker and I wanted people to realize, you may have weight problems working against you, height problems, whatever, but you can still conquer it and go for your dreams.

I've had a very unusual background in science - not the usual route of planning on being a scientist from age 3. I think my story shows that success is more about personal motivation and determination than it is about where you were born or what your economic status was.

They said I couldn't play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York.

I want to be an example of a guy who made something of himself out of nothing. A guy who overcame the odds of a tough childhood, who worked hard, who didn't let his surroundings get the best of him and lead him to jail or the graveyard. Where I ended up - being a comedian, a TV star, and a movie actor - might be unique, but my story is not.

If you are different, or you have minimum possibilities, you can still succeed. I am living proof of that.

I'm living proof you can excel regardless of where you come from.

Being 5' 10, I was supposed to be too short to play college volleyball. So that gave me the hunger and the fire to say, Oh yeah? I'd just hit the crap out of the ball.

It is possible for a kid from east Texas, raised in south central LA and Carson, who believes in his dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them and to have them happen.

I wanted to prove to people it doesn't matter if you come from a small little island: that you can make it in this industry.

I'm a doer and I just want to do it. Whatever attitudes, prejudices, stereotypical ideas that are in front of me, I will break them. But the only way I can break them is by getting a job, and if I need to start in the gutter, I will start in the gutter and work my way up. Money isn't an issue.

You can make something out of nothing. I proved that with my career, making it out of the city that I'm from.

I thought about the problems I had growing up: how I prioritised football over school, but people were telling me I wouldn't make it, that it wasn't possible. The thing is, I did make it, thanks to my own will and determination and the help of some people I had around me in my hometown.

Everybody from my childhood growing up had to have that confidence, that self-will. Go out there and do something, be something, prove that you're gonna be more than this.

I would certainly encourage young people to pursue their dreams. It isn't always an easy path, but it's worth going after. And I figure if a farmer's daughter from Iowa can become an astronaut, you can be just about anything you want to be.

I'm a guy who is going to go out there and do his best, and I'm a guy who has always gone out there and proved people wrong.

I just want to keep working hard. I just want to keep improving myself. And I just want to prove people that I can play in the real game.

The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.

With drive and a bit of talent, you can move mountains.

Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. When people can't do something themselves, they are going to tell you that you can't do it. You want something, go get it. Period.

Life must continue, even with the security situation so bad, because I have ambitions. I love this sport too much.

I have this drive to prove people wrong - people who thought I should give up or assumed I'd never get anywhere.

I remember when I was in college, people told me I couldn't play in the NBA. There's always somebody saying you can't do it, and those people have to be ignored.

I think it's a great thing to have failed in life and then pulled yourself up by the boot straps and actually done something, because then you appreciate it more.

You have to lift your head up out of the mud and just do it.