Literary or inspirational quotations

loneswimmerloneswimmer IrelandCharter Member
edited April 2013 in General Discussion
This discussion was created from comments split from: The essential aphorisms of marathon swimming.

The aphorisms thread is intended to be a collection of the essential distillation of the marathon community's knowledge, wisdom and wit. Some fall between two stools but I've made a quick effort to put each where appropriate.

loneswimmer.com

Comments

  • Leonard_JansenLeonard_Jansen Charter Member
    "Fear, like pain, may only be God's way... of hurting us." -Firesign Theater

    “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde

  • AquaRobAquaRob Humboldt Bay, CACharter Member
    I've always liked this one...

    huntersthompsonquote.jpg
  • JbetleyJbetley UKMember
    What doesn't kill you makes you stronger....
  • Forget all the reasons why it won't work and believe the one reason why it will.
  • "Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Sisu: a Finnish term meaning strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity.

  • nvr2latenvr2late Central VirginiaCharter Member
    "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are right." Henry Ford

    "Do something everyday that scares you" Eleanor Roosevelt.
  • HaydnHaydn Member
    It's better to try and fail and try and fail again, than it is to fail to try and fail to try again.

    Don't know who said it.
  • ssthomasssthomas DenverCharter Mem​ber
    A ship is safe in the harbour, but that's not what ships are for. --quote from my HonestTea bottle. ;-)
  • heartheart San Francisco, CACharter Member
    The water is your friend. You don't have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move. ~Aleksandr Popov
    Copelj26
  • heartheart San Francisco, CACharter Member
    If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up. - Abraham Maslow
  • SharkoSharko Tomales BayGuest
    When we're in the water, we're not in this world.....Gertrude Ederle

    "I never met a shark I didn't like"

  • caburkecaburke Charter Member
    I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been by far. For a might-have-been has never been, but a has-been was an are.
  • oxooxo Guest
    Tom Peters: "Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works ... then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else."
  • MvGMvG MauritiusCharter Member
    'Keep putting one arm in front of the other until you run out of water' - the surefire advice for Channel Swimming success, not sure who said it first, Channel General Freda Streeter?
  • oxooxo Guest
  • Chris_ODChris_OD Oceanside, CAMember
    One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew I was dead.
  • sharkbaitzasharkbaitza LondonMember
    Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. - Master Yoda

  • malinakamalinaka Seattle, WACharter Member
    Niek wrote:
    "The cure for anything is saltwater - sweat, tears or the sea." Isaak Dineson (found in another post )

    Sure it is an inspirational quotation, especially when shown in swirly white font overlayed on a background of tropical beach, but please appreciate the irony. This exchange from Seven Gothic Tales is about jumping off a bridge, or not, as it may be. I suspect this context could be more appropriate to marathon swimming than in the tropical beach context.

    image

    I don't wear a wetsuit; it gives the ocean a sporting chance.

  • swimmer25kswimmer25k Charter Member
    edited May 2014
    Discipline: doing it right when no one else is looking.
  • “You can never step into the same river; for new waters are always flowing on to you.” Heraclitus of Ephesus
  • SpacemanspiffSpacemanspiff Dallas, TexasSenior Member
    "I'm here a week now. Waiting for a mission. Getting softer; every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger."

    -- Captain Benjamin Willard, Apocalypse Now

    "Of every 100 men they send me, 80 of them are nothing but targets and 10 more should not even be here. Of the 10 that are left, 9 of them are real fighters and we are lucky to have them for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one of them is a warrior and he I must find for he will bring the others back and he the battle wins."

    -- Heraclites, Roman Commander, 500 BC

    "Adversity introduces a man to himself."

    -- Unknown

    "Lights go out and I can't be saved
    Tides that I tried to swim against
    Have brought be down upon my knees
    Oh I beg, I beg and plead..."

  • loneswimmerloneswimmer IrelandCharter Member
    When asked "why"about this sport, using Socrates has alway given me the best results (i.e knowing nods without any repeat of the question):

    "No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

    Adjust as gender appropriate.
    Copelj26

    loneswimmer.com

  • SalishSeaSalishSea Nanaimo, BC CanadaMember
    "It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is
    because we do not dare that they are difficult." -Seneca
  • swimmer25kswimmer25k Charter Member
    "I don't remember eating that."- 1984 and 1988 Olympian Jeff Kostoff after he puked (Carolina BBQ) into my kayak during 1994 World 25K Trials in Wrightsville Beach, NC. I
  • swimmer25kswimmer25k Charter Member
    Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. - Master Yoda

    "Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering"

    I fear the 50 free.
  • SpacemanspiffSpacemanspiff Dallas, TexasSenior Member
    swimmer25k wrote:
    "I don't remember eating that."- 1984 and 1988 Olympian Jeff Kostoff after he puked (Carolina BBQ) into my kayak during 1994 World 25K Trials in Wrightsville Beach, NC. I
    LOL. So here's a similar one:

    "breakfast tacos?" -- A passing cyclist correctly identifying my freshly exposed stomach contents half way up a particularly challenging climb in the grueling Leakey Death Ride, circa 1997

    "Lights go out and I can't be saved
    Tides that I tried to swim against
    Have brought be down upon my knees
    Oh I beg, I beg and plead..."

  • Mike_GemelliMike_Gemelli Rutherford, NJMember
    "I come from the water...yeah."

    The Toadies


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