"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit."
Read quote
17 likes
Running quotes
Running
14.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Running
Browse quotes that often appear alongside running — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Running quotes (page 33 of 734)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The confidence and security of a people can be measured by their attitude toward laxatives. At the high noon of the British sun, soldiers in far-flung outposts of the Empire doctored themselves with "a spoonful o' gunpowder in a cuppa 'ot tea." Purveyors and users of harsh laxatives were not afraid of being thought mean and unfriendly just because their laxatives were. But in America, the need to be nice is so consuming that nobody would dare take a laxative that makes you run up the stairs two at a time, pushing others aside and yelling, "Get out of the way!"
Read quote
17 likes
"People cleave to their worldly possessions and selfish passions so blindly as to sacrifice their own lives for them. They are like a child who tries to eat a little, honey smeared on the edge of a knife. The amount is by no means sufficient to appease his appetite, but he runs the risk of wounding his tongue."
Read quote
17 likes
"Few among men are they who cross to the further shore. The others merely run up and down the bank on this side."
Read quote
17 likes
"But I am living in the midst of the uncertainty and risk, amid things that can and do bring physical destruction, because I am running from things that can destroy my soul: complacency, comfort, and ignorance. I am much more terrified of living a comfortable life in a self-serving society and failing to follow Jesus than I am of any illness or tragedy."
Read quote
17 likes
"I would like to visit the factory that makes train horns, and ask them how they are able to arrive at that chord of eternal mournfulness. Is it deliberately sad? Are the horns saying, Be careful, stay away from this train or it will run you over and then people will grieve, and their grief will be as the inconsolable wail of this horn through the night? The out-of-tuneness of the triad is part of its beauty."
Read quote
17 likes
"People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest."
Read quote
17 likes
"How extraordinary was my life an incident may illustrate... [As a youth] I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls. I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind."
Read quote
17 likes
"In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. ... moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated."
Read quote
17 likes
"My love runs deeper than the wounds."
Read quote
17 likes
"When time is running out and the score is close, most players are thinking, I don't want to be the one to lose the game, but I'm thinking, What do I have to do to win?"
Read quote
17 likes
"Some people take better care of their pets than they do themselves. Their animals can run like the wind and they can barely make it up a flight of stairs."
Read quote
17 likes
"I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left."
Read quote
17 likes
"When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that run by there is this thick paw of my life darting among the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue."
Read quote
17 likes
"Most people (by the time they have become adults ) can't change their minds because their neural pathways have become set... the longer neural pathways have been running one way the harder it is to rewire them."
Read quote
17 likes
"We run everything to ground. If you see something, say something. Report your concerns to law enforcement. They will be looked at, they will be reviewed."
Read quote
16 likes
"The greatest mistake a person can make is to be afraid of making one."
Read quote
16 likes
"The imagination of man is naturally sublime, delighted with whatever is remote and extraordinary, and running, without control, into the most distant parts of space and time in order to avoid the objects, which custom has rendered too familiar to it."
Read quote
16 likes
"The bird, the bee, the running child are all the same to the sliding glass door."
Read quote
16 likes
"I never write in the daytime. It's like running through the shopping mall with your clothes off. Everybody can see you. At night ... that's when you pull the tricks ... magic."
Read quote
16 likes