Dean Karnazes Quotes

If you just go out there and run 100 miles, it breaks down a lot of barriers in terms of self-imposed limitations.

Endurance running was my passion, my ride. So here, I was in the driver's seat, running for two days straight pushing the mental and physical limits striving to be better, to go farther, to give more.

Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life

I always pushed myself. Whenever I felt I needed to stop, I made myself run faster.

The real purpose of running isn't to win a race, it's to test the limits of the human heart.

No matter how old I get, the race remains one of life's most rewarding experiences. My times become slower and slower, but the experience of the race is unchanged: each race a drama, each race a challenge, each race stretching me in one way or another, and each race telling me more about myself and others.

The only limits on human achievement are self-imposed.

History is for human self-knowledge. Knowing yourself means knowing, first, what it is to be a person; secondly, knowing what it is to be the kind of person you are; and thirdly, knowing what it is to be the person you are and nobody else is. Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what they can do until they try, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.

We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe. We are stronger and more resourceful than we know, and we can endure much more than we think we can.

There is a ferocity to MMA and to the training, but there's such a humanity to it too. It takes so much sacrifice and humility to get into it and to rise through those levels. If you look at the fights as a means to test who you are, every one of these fights is an opportunity to see how far you're willing to go up against yourself - and to find and define your limits.

Aikido can be summed up like this: True victory is self-victory; let that day arrive quickly! (True victory) means unflinching courage; (self-victory) symbolizes unflagging effort; and (let that day arrive quickly) represents the glorious moment of triumph in the here and now.

In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.

Like running trying to live a good life has to hurt a little bit, or we're not running hard enough, not really trying.

If you don't learn anything but self discipline, then athletics is worthwhile.

I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away - I rose right where I'd been knocked down. And then that's how you get to know yourself. You say, hmm, I can get up!

Self-recognition is necessary to know one's road, but, knowing the road, the price of the mistakes and perils is worth paying. The following of that road will be all the discipline one needs. Discipline does not mean being molded by outside forces, but sticking to one's road against the forces that would deflect or bury the soul. People speak of finding one

I train so hard to make sure failure doesn't happen. If I do everything I can, and run as fast as I possibly can and someone still beats me, I don't think of that as failure.

I think we all strive to push ourselves, to overcome our struggles. And when we do, we get to know ourselves better.

I want to run for eternal glory and track is great, but it's not what life is all about.

Being a successful person is not necessarily defined by what you have achieved, but by what you have overcome.

Not enough people realize the satisfaction you can get from really pushing yourself to the limits.

All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge.

Running has taken me in, and continues to comfort, heal and challenge me in all kinds of magical ways. I am not a 'good runner' because I am me. I am a good 'me' because I am a runner.

I didn't realize until that moment that Dauntless initiation had taught me an important lesson: how to keep going.

It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.