Quotes by Emil Zatopek

• You can't climb up to the second floor without a ladder. When you set your aim too high and don't fulfill it, then your enthusiasm turns to bitterness. Try for a goal that's reasonable, and then gradually raise it.
• Why should I practice running slow? I already know how to run slow. I want to learn to run fast.
• When I was young, I was too slow. I thought I must learn to run fast by practicing to run fast, so I ran 100 meters fast 20 times. Then I came back, slow, slow, slow.
• What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.
• The athlete of today is not an athlete alone. He's the center of a team - doctors, scientists, coaches, agents and so on.
• To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it that means there is nothing special about it. What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.
• If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.
• We are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.
• Great is the victory, but the friendship of all is greater.
• My running was very simple; it was out of myself.
• There is a great advantage in training under unfavorable conditions. It is better to train under bad conditions, for the difference is then a tremendous relief in a race.
• It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.
• If one can stick to the training throughout the many long years, then will power is no longer a problem. It's raining? That doesn't matter. I am tired? That's besides the point. It's simply that I just have to.
• An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.
• A runner must run with dreams in his heart, not money in his pocket.
• Men, today we die a little.