Wilma Rudolph

“They would say, 'If you run around too much as a girl, you'll never be able to have children.' The running was supposed to be too much strain for your body, and your body would never be the same again.”

“No one has a life where everything that happened was good. I think the thing that made life good for me is that I never looked back. I've always been positive, no matter what happened.”

“I believe in me more than anything in this world.”

“After the scarlet fever and the whooping cough, I remember I started to get mad about it all... I went through the stage of asking myself, 'Wilma, what is this existence all about? Is it about being sick all the time? It can't be.' So I started getting angry about things, fighting back in a new way with a vengeance.”

“There were good jobs, but they were never what I wanted to do. Somehow, people always thought of Wilma Rudolph as a threat.”

“Later on in life, I discovered that in order for me to be successful, I had to have a challenge. I can't do a nine to five job.”

“But when you come from a large, wonderful family, there's always a way to achieve your goals.”

“The triumph can't be had without the struggle.”

“In college, I was an education major and qualified for several jobs. But the fame that came with the Olympic medals was too threatening to many people.”

“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.”

“Down South, there was the old 'ladies-don't-do-such-things' way of thinking. You couldn't be a lady and a good athlete at the same time.”

“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.”

“When I ran, I felt like a butterfly that was free.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“You become world famous, and you sit with kings and queens, and then your first job is just a job. You can't go back to living the way you did before because you've been taken out of one setting and shown the other. That becomes a struggle and makes you struggle.”

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

“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.”