Top 44 Quotes & Sayings by Michael Johnson
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American athlete Michael Johnson.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
I don't always do a lot of predicting, but, when I get a really strong feeling about something, I will tell people.
One of the main techniques I used was focusing on the goal and visualising myself competing in the race before the race started.
The mind is absolutely instrumental in achieving results, even for athletes. Sports psychology is a very small part, but it's extremely important when you're winning and losing races by hundredths and even thousandths of a second.
They think because I'm small, they can do what they want to do to me. But I'm not weak. If I lower my shoulder and they lower they're shoulder, they're going to go down.
They don't give you gold medals for beating somebody. They give you gold medals for beating everybody.
You can't control what the other athlete is going to do; you can't control anything except for your competition and how you execute the race or how you execute the task.
Rivalries don't necessarily mean races being close at major championships. I had a rivalry with Butch Reynolds for many years. I won all the races, but Butch was the world record holder before I came into the sport, he was extremely talented and he was the only other man running 43 seconds.
There's a complete difference between training for a specific event and goal and just training.
Opting for gold shoes could have been considered downright cocky, but I was confident and never doubted my ability to deliver gold medals to match my shimmering footwear.
I've had to learn that not everybody does things my way. But I do expect the absolute best of everyone around me, and I'm disappointed when people don't expect that of themselves.
I work hard to improve myself as a person - as a father, as a husband, as a manager. I'm always on that mission.
I had already been into my professional career for six years and had not won an individual gold medal at the Olympics. There was a tremendous amount of pressure going into 1996 to get it done.
All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it's impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn't left an imprint through the generations.
As an athlete, I was never really comfortable with being a celebrity.
The only one who can beat me is me.
Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me - I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us.
All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it's impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn't left an imprint through the generations. Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me - I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us.
Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best.
As an athlete, I'd average four hours a day. It doesn't sound like a lot when some people say they're training for 10 hours, but theirs includes lunch, massage and breaks. My four hours was packed with work.
I always wanted to be a sprinter.
A good mentor offers directions and driving tips from the back seat. You still have to drive the car.
That first peak is the best place to pause and look back, to see if you took the easiest route, to learn the lessons from the first climb. And it is the best place to examine the terrain ahead, to change your plans and goals, to take a deep breath and begin climbing again.
Examine the opportunities, the challenges you've given yourself.
I believe that it is better to learn from the diverse people around us than to try in vain to emulate them, better to be a teacher than a role model. As strong as my legs are, it is my mind that has made me a champion.
The only way to deal with loss - as a horribly unwelcome guest that you know will show up eventually. And so you deny it and reject it and ignore it and laugh in its face. You toss it out into the street and push it away and fight it off, and only it has landed square in your lap, only then do you deal with it.
When you're gone I can go running though the house screaming and no one will ever hear me.
Don't shoot for something unattainable - completely outside of your nature or opportunity.
A bird, music and food -desert island items
On the £20,000 Mercedes prizes for each winner at the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart- Anyone good enough to win already has one.
You can make goals for family, relationships, anything.
A good traveller is one who knows how to travel with the mind.
It is clearly not the journey for everyone. People succeed in as many ways as there are people. Some can be completely fulfilled with destinations that are much closer to home and more comfortable. But if you long to keep going, then I hope you are able to follow my lead to the places I have gone. To within a whisper of your own personal perfection. To places that are sweeter because you worked so hard to arrive there. To places at the very edge of your dreams.
The basis of self-discipline: Don't allow the edges to blur.
How could you look more stupid than to be the guy accepting a bronze medal in gold shoes?
(Natural Talent + Opportunity) Hard Work = Success
The only thing you can never change is your values.
Your problems pale in comparison with those of the millions of people in the world who do not have enough to eat.
Protect your good image from the eyes of negative viewers, who may look at your good appearance with an ugly fiendish eye, and ruin your positive qualities with their chemical infested tongues.
It is important that you strive for humility, but not humiliation, for a cool, level-headed confidence, not a stiff, delusional arrogance.
As strong as my legs are, it is my mind that has made me a champion.
You owe it to yourself to find your own unorthodox way of succeeding, or sometimes, just surviving.
Be who you are in every situation.
You learn as much from those who have failed as from those who have succeeded.
Along with trustworthiness, consistency is the thing to look for when you surround yourself with people who can help you on your quest.
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