Wilma Rudolph

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.

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

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.

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.

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.