Wilma Rudolph Quotes (22 Quotes)

I know black women in Tennessee who have worked all their lives, from the time they were twelve years old to the day they died. These women don't listen to the women's liberation rhetoric because they know that it's nothing but a bunch of white women who had certain life-styles and who want to change those life-styles. They say things like they don't want men opening doors for them anymore, and they don't want men lighting their cigarettes for them anymore. Big deal. Black women have been opening doors for themselves and lighting their own cigarettes for a couple centuries in this country. Black women don't quibble about things that are not important.

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.

Black women . . . work because their husbands can't make enough money at their jobs to keep everything going. . . . They don't go to work to find fulfillment, or adventure, or glamour and romance, like so many white women think they are doing. Black women work out of necessity.

What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope Do you go back home and take a job What do you do to keep your sanity You come back to the real world.

It doesn't matter what you're trying to accomplish. It's all a matter of discipline. I was determined to discover what life held for me beyond the inner-city streets.

Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life.

Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.

I ran and ran and ran every day, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened.

My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.

Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.

When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.

I had a series of childhood illnesses . . . scarlet fever . . . . pneumonia . . . . Polio. I walked with braces until I was at least nine years old. My life wasn't like the average person who grew up and decided to enter the world of sports.

I don't know why I run so fast. I just run.

I loved the feeling of freedom in running, the fresh air, the feeling that the only person I'm competing with is me.

I believe in me more than anything in this world.

The triumph cannot be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.

When I was going through my transition of being famous, I tried to ask God why was I here what was my purpose Surely, it wasn't just to win three gold medals. There has to be more to this life than that.

The triumph can't be had without the struggle.

The feeling of accomplishment welled up inside of me, three Olympic gold medals. I knew that was something nobody could ever take away from me, ever.

I'm in my prime. There's no goal too far, no mountain too high.

My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.