“I think people can handle 150 to 200 miles a week. But something has to give somewhere. If he’s a student, how’s he going to study? He may be at the age of chasing and courtship, and that’s an important form of sport and recreation, too.”

Both the liberal and the conservative are in agreement: it is all very well to let the people alone, but only if they do what you want them to do.

There is no bad weather, just soft runners.

The world, then, no longer resembles the one that gave rise to the original insight. Soon, a person’s situation is so at odds with the world as it really is that a crisis develops, and he or she must seek a new metaphor for explanation and guidance.

Only simple ideas can be held by large groups of people. Commonly held ideas are almost always dumbed down until they are practically lies… and often dangerous ones.

A teacher is never too smart to learn from his pupils. But while runners differ, basic principles never change.

A man’s wealth can…also be measured by what he doesn’t have and doesn’t want. When he wants little, he is a rich man.

So it’s a matter of fitting your current practices to fit the event and the individual. See, what’s good for you might not be worth a darn for the next guy.

Once vast numbers of people have come to believe the lie, they adjust their own behavior to bring themselves into sync with it, and thereby change the world itself.

People are upset. They know something is wrong. But they don’t know what. The real explanation is too complicated. They won’t sit still for it. So, they look for scapegoats – the rich…the banks…the Chinese.

The entire world economy rests on the consumer; if he ever stops spending money he doesn’t have on things he doesn’t need — we’re done for.

That is the problem with age and wisdom—it merely shows you how helpless you are. The wiser you become, the more you learn to keep your mouth shut, until eventually the grave silences you forever.

Several of my critics have said, ‘Bowerman just tacks up a piece of paper in the locker room and turns his runners loose.’ They’re partially right. I do give the athletes a relatively free rein and for good reason. One of my principles is? ‘Don’t overcoach.’

Harness the Power of Accelerated Failure – the faster you fail, the faster you succeed.

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.

I still bother with runners I call hamburgers. They’re never going to run any record times. But they can fulfill their own potential.

Now it is done by the central bankers and Treasury Secretaries themselves. They don’t apologize for it. They don’t hang their heads and contemplate blowing their brains out. Instead, they’re proud of it… announcing that they ‘saved civilization,’ or some such claptrap.

Across the board you can run up against 10 athletes where we’re the same physically. They’ve done the same kind of training; they are in the same kind of shape. But the one that wins is the person who really believes they can win.

People in the U.K. share my bemusement with the United States that America doesn’t share with itself. They have a sense of irony, which America doesn’t have, seeing as it’s being run by fundamentalists who take things literally.

The smart guy will outsmart himself. The lucky guy will run out of luck. The money guy will never have the desire. But hard work will take you anywhere you want to go.

You have got to want to be the best before you can even begin to reach for that goal, and you have got to be prepared to sacrifice a lot to get there.

Our economy is a plantation run for the aristocrats – the CEOs, hedge funds, private equity firms – while the field hands are left with the scraps.

I’m mad at Hank Aaron for deciding to play one more season. I threw him his last home run and thought I’d be remembered forever. Now, I’ll have to throw him another.

Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.

Personally, I don’t think the film and television industries are run as well as they used to be. Oh sure, we’ve got great digital effects now but… where are the visionaries?