Swimmers

"I had the endurance but not the brute strength that must be coupled with it. No woman has this combination. That's why I say none of my sex will ever accomplish that particular stunt."

"The men, who started from different points along the coast, wore no clothes, but I was compelled to put on a bathing suit. Small as it was, it chafed me. When I finished, my flesh under the arms was raw and hurt fearfully."

"There are two kinds of bathing suits, those that are adapted for use in the water, and those that are unfit for use except on dry land. If you are going to swim, wear a water bathing suit. But if you are merely going to play on the beach and pose for your camera friends, you may safely wear the dry land variety."

"Dream as big as you can dream, and anything is possible."

"Records are always made to be broken no matter what they are. Anybody can do anything that they set their mind to."

"It's not how you start, but it's how you finish."

"Four-point-two kilometres is a long way for a frozen body to sink."

"My father taught me to understand that not much was impossible, if you had a mind to go after it. What seems beyond you is only unreachable if that’s what you believe."

"Nothing excited me more than opening up the atlas and seeing places and seas, imagining what they looked like and what kind of life the people had."

"My love for the water would always be tempered by respect for dangers that must never be underestimated."

"My own feeling was that witnessing the explosion of an atomic bomb, and having to examine all the dead animals, had a profound effect on my father."

"Always when we walked, it was clear to me how much he loved nature, wild flowers, animals in their natural habitat and the simple pleasures of a beautiful sunset. My love for the environment did not develop out of a vacuum."

"Going against the tide has never been difficult for me. It wasn’t even a conscious decision but the natural consequence of following my own instinct."

"It took me over three years to get the beret and the most enriching part of the experience was getting to know men for whom you would have given your life on the battlefield. It is a big thing to say there are people who are not your family for whom you would give up your life. But that is how close we became."

"Ultimately I wanted to be a pioneer swimmer, a distant descendant of Scott, Amundsen and Hillary, except that I would be an explorer of the water."

"I resolved to follow my dream. I wanted to push every boundary. I wanted to swim further than anyone else. I wanted to cross seas and round capes that no one had dreamed of swimming before. And I wanted to swim in waters that were so cold no one thought it was possible to survive in them. And though it promised to make me poor and would take away the security provided by a career in law, that didn’t worry me."

"I could not believe what I was seeing: everywhere there were whale bones. Thousands of them stacked on top of each other. They rose from the seabed almost to the surface of the water. There were big bones. I could make out many of them: rib bones, jaw bones, vertebrae. In some places they were piled so high that, when I took a stroke, my hands touched them. I thought of all the beautiful whales I’d seen around the coast of South Africa and Norway that add so much to the area. How many whales were hunted and brought to this island before having their carcasses burned for oil and their bones dumped in this way? It disgusted me to such an extent that I considered stopping the swim to move it elsewhere, but I decided I had to press on."

"I have been haunted by that swim through the whale graveyard and haven’t been able to get the image of the bones out of my head. Man hunted whales almost to the point of extinction, not seeming to care that we would lose one of the wonders of the sea world forever. It is the coldness of the water in Antarctica that preserves the bones and makes it look like they were left there yesterday but I like to think they are there as a reminder of man’s potential for folly."

"...when you swim from England to France you’ve got to leave your doubt on the beach at Dover."

"When people say to me, you must have a very strong mind to swim across the North Pole, or off Antarctica or on Mount Everest, I tell them that endurance swimming builds good mental strength."

"I don’t know of any sport where the goalposts can shift the way they do with endurance swimming."

"Thoughts alone won’t make extraordinary things happen. But nothing ever happens if you don’t visualise it first."

"A massive turquoise glacier feeds into Magdalenefjord, with chunks of ice as big as buildings breaking off and landing in the water to float away as icebergs. As I swam past them, with my head in the water, I heard a tantalising sound: a snap-crackle-pop, just like Rice Krispies in milk. It was the sound of tiny air bubbles being released from the ice – air that had been trapped there as much as 3,000 years ago. To swim through this sound, I thought, is to swim in history."

"They have [...] a split personality. One moment they’re your best mate, and next they are trying to drag you down to the bottom of the sea to drown you. [...] It’s just astonishing."

"The essence of any great achievement is to believe in your purpose."

"I knew now that I had to stand up and start speaking about protecting our environment. From that moment on, every swim should have the aim of inspiring people to protect and preserve the world’s oceans and all that live in them."

"The most powerful form of self-belief comes from believing in something greater than you. Because when you’ve got purpose, everything becomes possible."

"I’m not a rule-breaker by nature. But there are times when you need to untangle yourself from red tape. Because the truth is, if you wait for permission, some things will simply never happen."

"When you have hope in the future, you have power in the present. And when you lose that hope, your dream goes with it."

"Never plan for victory and defeat in your mind at the same time."

"This wasn’t some kind of stunt. This was a symbolic swim, and I needed to be courageous. [...] Swimming in a wetsuit or drysuit just wouldn’t send the right signal."

"When you are walking up a mountain to attempt something that nobody’s ever tried before, and you pass people bringing corpses down, it becomes very clear that if you get it wrong, the consequences could be fatal."

"[...] it’s much easier to achieve big dreams than it is small ones. Big dreams require big passion. And when you’ve got passion it’s easier to inspire others to come along and help you."

"I’ve been swimming for 25 years, and I don’t think there is one swim that I have done where someone didn’t say beforehand, ‘I don’t think it’s possible’ or ‘You’ll never make it’. If someone tells you that you can’t achieve your dream, don’t waste good time arguing. Walk away and do it."

"Don’t look for other people to validate your dreams. If it feels right, just go for it."

"No matter how tough my day has been, when I dive into the sea, the world seems perfect."

"There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity, which should never be crossed."

"I always tell young swimmers: 'Practice things until you can't get them wrong. Not until you get them right.' There's a big difference."

"Law taught me how to argue passionately and rationally. That’s key to being a successful environmental campaigner. If you are too emotional you run the risk of turning off policy makers. And if you can’t present your arguments rationally, no one will listen to you."

"When I can’t decide which path to take, I have a meeting with the 75-year-old me. That person usually knows what to do."

"If you have a passion, follow it. It's the best barometer of what you will be good at. And choose a career that you enjoy – the extra money of a job you detest isn’t worth it."

"I tolerate cold water. Anyone who says they love swimming in freezing water is either lying or has never done it."

"I think it foolhardy to predict the absolute limits of human endurance."

"Too little confidence, and you're unable to act; too much confidence, and you're unable to hear."

"I look for swims where I can carry a powerful message. No message, no swim. I don’t get wet now unless it’s for a reason."

"I’ve swum through some very cold and rough seas. I think that’s made me more determined than the average person."

"As a pioneer swimmer, you've got to be willing to fail and try again. The point isn’t to learn to fail, the point is to learn to bounce back."

"There's a tyranny in perfection. Just do things to the very best of your ability. Then move on."

"My mind has to be ready. My body also has to be ready. But even more important, my heart has to be ready. What I mean by that is for the swims I do, I must have a burning reason."

"Being the first to undertake a swim is exponentially harder than going second. You don’t know what will happen. The fear can be crippling. It’s much easier to go second. You know it’s possible. But the world is divided into pioneers and followers. You are one or the other. I prefer to be a pioneer."

"The trick is to make fear your friend. Fear forces you to prepare more rigorously and see potential problems more quickly."

"To do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding doubt and fear."

"You must not dither - swim like you're running through a minefield."

"You don't know pain until you've had a stalactite in your cock."

"If we pass on an unsustainable environment to our children we have failed them."

"There’s nothing more chilling than swimming across open sea, where recently there used to be a solid glacier."

"A thought came across my mind: if things go pear-shaped on this swim, how long will it take for my frozen body to sink the four and a half kilometers to the bottom of the ocean?"

"There is nothing more powerful than the made-up mind."

"We made fracking a civil rights issue. Because that is what it is. We all have a right to a healthy environment and to clean water. And so do our children."

"Unless our children have been into nature, it is unlikely they will care about it when they grow up."

"Everywhere water is under threat. It is our most precious resource. And there is no alternative to it."

"The right to have our environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations is our most important human right."

"Sometimes the moments that challenge us the most, define us."

"The English Channel is the perfect stretch of water to truly test the human mind."

"These are areas of unparalleled natural beauty to be handed to our children undisturbed. We are merely custodians. You would not build a toll plaza and an administration block in the Grand Canyon or next to the Victoria Falls or within any other World Heritage Site.”"

"A healthy ocean is an ocean with sharks. Take away an apex predator and it’s like removing the lions from the Serengeti. It won’t be long before the gazelle, zebras and wildebeest have multiplied and eaten all the grass. And when the land is laid bare the grazers will starve to death. Predators are crucial for a healthy ecosystem – be it on land or in the water."

"An estimated 100 million sharks are fished out of the world's oceans every year. Take a minute to mull over that figure. That's over a quarter of a million animals each day … If this number of humans were killed in a year, it would be called genocide. There is a name for what is happening in our oceans today: it is ecocide."

"When we set aside MPAs we protect the marine habitat. When we do that, fish stocks recover. Which supports food security. When we create MPAs, we protect the coral, which protects the shoreline and provides shelter for fish. Marine Protected Areas are places people want to visit for ecotourism, so it's good for the economy. It has, if you'll pardon the pun, a ripple effect. Marine Protected Areas are good for the world economy, for the health of the oceans, for every person living on this planet."

"For us to find lasting peace between people, we must first make peace with nature."

"I always feel nostalgic when I disembark (off a ship). It's not that I don't like land. I just love being at sea."

"To succeed as a pioneer you need two things: ignorance and purpose. Ignorance of just how tough the path ahead will be. And a driving purpose, which keeps you going nonetheless."

"Most Channel crossings are won or lost before the first stroke is even taken."

"Never, ever did I think that there would be a debate in this arid country about which was more important – gas or water. We can survive without gas. We cannot live without water."

"Look around the world. Wherever you damage the environment, you have conflict. We have had enough conflict in [South Africa] – now is the time for peace."

"Now is the time for change. We cannot drill our way out of the energy crisis. The era of fossil fuels is over. We must invest in renewable energy. And we must not delay."

"The right to have our environment protected for the benefit of our generation and the benefit of future generations is our most crucial human right. I do not say that lightly - especially given South Africa’s past."

"We cannot afford the luxury of cynicism or even pessimism in our reaction to climate change. The situation is too serious. We must tackle it head on – and immediately."

"I have seen what the challenge of the impossible does to some athlete's minds - once their minds accept that the impossible is achievable, their bodies soon follow."

"Afterwards, I saw a visible transformation in Pugh, and was reminded again of the power of a single event to change a sportsperson's life radically. I have witnessed this twice in my career - once when Joel Stransky kicked the winning goal in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, and now with Pugh's North Pole swim. Both became more complete and confident people after achieving such sporting milestones."

"Lewis Pugh is a maritime lawyer by training and a pursuer of dreams by inclination. There isn't an ocean he hasn't wanted to swim, or a mountain he hasn't wan't to climb, and it's no surprise that he quit his well-paid lawyer's job in the City of London for a more interesting life."

"He just pulls on his Speedos and gets on with it. It's Britishly mad."

"You can work out in a pool and sweat, but you don't smell. In the water you are weightless. You are ageless. It feels exhilarating to get wet. And you know the water is a very sexy medium. Why do you think people always get in a hot tub?"

"Just make the point we come from the water. It's the most natural medium in the world. It's the only sport you can do from your first bath to your last without hurting yourself."

"I'll bet if I compare notes with Junie Allyson and Debbie Reynolds and anyone else who's had more than one marriage, the fact is that you fall in love and it's so wonderful to think about something other than yourself and whether the script's right for you and who's going to be your leading man, that you don't really ask yourself questions about the fellow. He's just wonderful looking and he dances well and you have a wonderful time and it's fun to go out, and all of a sudden you're in a lifelong marriage."

"It feels like all my hard work has paid off and being able to back up with two big competitions this year has given me more confidence for the future and I'm really excited to see how far I can go."

"I just won't share a podium with someone that behaves in the way that he has."

"You’re a loser, I’m a winner."

"1500 metre, I am the king."

"If Horton and Guy can swim a little faster, they can taste my delicious footbath water."

"霍頓（Mack Horton）、蓋伊（James Guy），你們游得再快一點，就能喝到我美味的洗腳水了。"

"It has been fascinating to see other cultures, and to see how sports can serve to link these cultures together, even if just momentarily. An interesting common thread I see is the importance of sports in these cultures, the passion that exists for sports and athletic accomplishment. It is wonderful that sports can have this kind of impact on people, and one can only hope that sports and competition will therefore have a positive impact on how various nations view each other."

"I think the beauty of Catholicism is its consistency through both successes and difficulties. I’ve counted on my faith to give me strength through both training and competition — but also in school, with my family and everyday life. So while my goals in the pool have changed, my faith remains something that’s consistent and something I can always rely on."

"My passion for swimming started at a very tender age. I used to swim at my mom’s workplace at the Grand Palm, and it was mainly for fun. But the love developed and I took it from there.I got an opportunity to go to the USA to study and do professional swimming by emailing a couple of Universities. So many University coaches wanted me to be in their respective teams. I got enrolled at Florida, and everything transitioned quickly as I was introduced to impressive training facilities, a coach, physical therapy and sports psychology which played a vital role in my performance as a swimmer."

"The atmosphere of the Olympics was out of this world. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It is an empowering experience and something I will forever cherish being surrounded by some of the best athletes in the world. I was very nervous for the entire time I was there though. It can be overwhelming and often you doubt yourself. But overall an amazing experience."

"I hope I could inspire some kids and other people along the way and show them that you can also reach your goals when you work hard for your dreams! Also in one of the smallest countries in the world (Liechtenstein)!"

"But I just want to say if I cannot win the gold eventually, I will not let my rivals win easily. We need to fight for it. I can accept not standing on the highest podium, but I will never give up."

"I didn't even want to train, I was just playing, but I was persuaded to come back by the coach at the time. He said that you can't train like this. Everyone has a low point. Why can't you persist?"

"Just treat every day as a new day to swim. When it's used up, recharge it, and when it's used up, recharge it again."

"At the beginning, I thought I was an ordinary athlete, and I didn't think too much about it. But as people asked me for a lot of things, I also felt that I should pay attention to my words and deeds. No longer. Can't let my temper anymore."

"I have been training for the whole year with my coach, though it has been difficult because it’s not easy to study and do sport at the same time, I want to do my best."

"Many of the things I would wish to do are beyond my control."

"Swimming always challenges an athlete mentally and physically. It is an individual sport, you don’t have a teammate to pass the ball to like in football and team sports. You compete against others, but also with yourself."

"At first I tried out a few disciplines before settling for swimming. Then what followed was a lot of learning and training to become a professional."

"Many of the things I would wish to do are beyond my control. I would need swimming pools of international standard during my training, have more practice time and participate in many competitions before the Olympics."

"Our aim is to develop the swimming sport in Rwanda, honoring athletes and their coaches. So, there is much more to come."

"Coaches ought to converse with athletes, with objectives they have to contribute a lot to the development of swimming sport in the country."

"I did not see this coming, I am excited because you guys have made my day. I am hoping to come to Kenya next year for the nationals and I have my eyes set on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo."

"It is my life’s work as a wellness coach, yoga instructor and personal trainer to inspire those who work with me to realise their best self ever."

"My passion is to find a balance between living a full productive, healthy life as a woman, as a wife and as a friend. It is my mission to help you do the same."

"Teresa Moodie. im a fun loving hard working mom of a teenager."

"Speaking on her new role as JET’s CEO Dr. Rodriguez-Moodie explained, “Growing up I always had a deep passion for the environment and its sustainability. As the activist Wangari Maathai once said – if we cannot sustain the environment, we cannot sustain ourselves. I have always admired JET’s work, and it is an honour to now be leading this amazing organization. I have a vision of a clean and healthy Jamaican environment, and I am looking forward to working with JET’s staff, membership, and other stakeholders to achieve that. We intend to continue to build greater awareness and understanding, so others will be as concerned as we are, we need all hands on deck."

"It is every athlete’s dream to compete in the Olympics and the competition is stiff. We might have qualified via wild card but in every sport, anything can happen. I am going there to compete not to make up the numbers."

"I was the first female swimmer in the country’s history."

"I have this slogan – I wish I could swim with a cap that says Swimming is just what I do; it’s not who I am."

"Achievements fall away but you want to be remembered for who you are, she said from Paris.I hope that I’m remembered for bringing people joy."

"Swimming is really just a part of and a season in your life, there’s so much more than swimming."

"I'm excited to in the future tell my kids I used to swim there (Olympics) once. I am just grateful that I can walk away with medals. It is any athlete's dream."

"I hope my story inspires one person, and if that happens I've reached my goal. It's never about trying to inspire millions, it's about inspiring that one person to never disqualify themselves from the race"

"The lane space is obviously crowded, so that could get frustrating on its own."

"But it really pushes you to grow as an individual. It helps you find your strengths amid this group because, at the end of the day, you're the one that's going to race the race by yourself."

"I swim because I love it. I also swim for a bigger purpose which is to use my talents to glorify God through my swimming"

"The world has defied success as medals and records where success is different in my mind. And I think that is why I'm very easy to go back and never be hard on myself in terms of that. I just try and find the next thing to improve a little bit more."

"For me, the emotions were really because it took a village to get me to where I am. I know they would have been proud even if I didn't have a medal"

"But it was really for them. I swam for everyone that's been there for me and believed with me."

"Sometimes, us as athletes, we always strive for the achievements, for example to get better or reach a certain goal, and that sometimes takes away from the purpose and passion of the sport."

"At the end of the day, a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer, so if we maintain that passion, we will ultimately maintain our purpose. The characteristics that our sport teaches us is also so important – the discipline and the perseverance – they create characteristics within you that last a lifetime, long after your swimming career has ended."

"I am very dedicated and motivated to the things that I love, when I put my mind to something I would do anything in my power to achieve it"

"I can’t believe what I had achieved. I had a difficult two years in which I did not once get close to swimming a personal best time. So, I had been quite discouraged ever so often. All I wanted to do at the Olympics Games was to swim a personal best time. It is what I wanted out of the whole Tokyo experience"

"It is always lovely to be recognised for what you are doing, but it should never be the sole purpose to do what you are doing. If you are swimming to get recognised, then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. You should do it for the love of the sport, the love of being active and the experiences that come with it. If you then get recognised for doing something great it is only a bonus and it doesn’t define you."

"To overcome challenges, it is good to reach out to family and friends and I do believe it means having a great bond between you and your coach to always let them know how you are feeling since all kinds of challenges can affect your training."

"It is always a great feeling to do well with a lot of your teammates and to have hard work pay off."

"I would love to be able to show younger women that we as women are so much stronger when we support one another. I believe that swimming should stay in the pool and as soon as the race is over, you celebrate one another no matter the outcome. Women need to stand together."

"I train together with Tatjana and teammates are very important to me. Your teammates are the ones who push you when you feel like you cannot carry on. The Tuks swim team environment is constantly evolving and getting better but like they say a rising tide lifts all the boats."

"I was not particularly good at everything, I must say. I tried to be good at everything but swimming finally chose me. When I say that swimming chose me I mean that I started doing better in swimming than in the other sports and started loving my time in the pool with all my friends."

"I would give them the advice to never lose the hunger to be better. Every day I wake up wanting to better and to achieve better, but not better than someone else but better than me."

"Make sure that you challenge yourself to be a whole person, work on yourself not just physically but take care of yourself emotionally, spiritually and mentally. It takes a whole person to succeed. Lastly, build a support system around you that will support you through the highs and the lows since swimming is not an individual sport, you might swim alone but it takes a team to get you faster."

"I was actually very calm and just focused on what I had to do and how I had to execute the race, so I think that was a really good thing – learning how to manage the nerves."

"Sometimes there are setbacks, and you just have to sit back and see what needs to be done to ensure you get where you need to be and achieve what you want."

"I really am living my dream at the moment, and am just keeping focused on enjoying the journey and taking it one moment at a time."

"It’s a big step up. The hard work is only starting now, and I love all the new challenges coming my way and I am learning a lot from each challenge."

"Never give up! Your time will come, and some days will be hard, but the good days will be unforgettable."

"She’s had to compete against and chase swimmers, faster and older than her for her whole career and it’s never fazed her. That’s a major reason why she’s where she is today and why she’s so comfortable punching above her weight",Da Ponte"

"Winning the world championship was a dream of mine since I was a little girl. I trained so hard to achieve that goal and it was definitely the best feeling ever."

"I was the youngest player in the league and I didn’t understand what was going on."

"At the beginning, no one encouraged, supported or even gave attention to any sports other than football. So after I had overcome all these obstacles to show that there are other sports [in which we] can achieve even better than football, now I think it will be easier for others to pursue this path."

"I am really interested to help young females to achieve what they want to. I try to be as much of a role model as I can because I want to help and inspire other people—not only in sports but whatever goal they have"

"I am a hard worker and passionate young lady that happened to have little talent and would like to pursue my dream of having an Olympic medal for my country. I would like to share my experience with the young athletes back home to give them the hope and will to succeed by pursuing their dream."

"My advice to young athletes, not only girls, is to never give up on your dreams and to be committed and determined to it because it is definitely worth the journey. So if you want to succeed and achieve your goal, you have to work hard and accept that you have to be out of your comfort zone because it is not easy."

"I think greatness in life is to follow your dream, work hard, fight and never give up till you reach your goal. Then pass your experience and success to others in an attempt to give back to your community."

"The more I thought about it, the more obsessed I became with the idea of a swimming journey. I started to dream ever more exclusively of water. Swimming and dreaming were becoming indistinguishable. I grew convinced that following water, flowing with it, would be a way of getting under the skin of things, of learning something new."

"From water level, I observed the mating joined in flight like refuelling aircraft, and the random progress of the clocks that drifted on the s over the moat."

"It is through trees that we see and hear the wind: woodland people can tell the species of a tree from the sound it makes in the wind. If Waterlog was about the element of water, Wildwood is about the element of wood, as it exists in nature, in our souls, in our culture and in our lives. To enter a wood is to pass into a different world in which we ourselves are transformed. It is no accident that in the of Shakespeare, people go into the greenwood to grow, learn and change. It is where you travel to find yourself, often, paradoxically, by getting lost. sends the future as a boy into the greenwood to fend for himself in . There, he falls asleep and dreams himself, like a chameleon, into the lives of the animals and the trees."

"Waterlog (1999), Roger's now-classic account of swimming through Britain, published twenty years ago this year, opens during a rain-storm in the spring-fed moat that lies close to the house. In Wildwood (2007), his epic account of trees, woods and forest cultures around the world, Walnut Tree Farm is the fixed point to which Roger returns and from which he learns,even as he journeys out to the groves of Kazakhstan and the of Australia. And in Notes from Walnut Tree Farm (2008), extracts from Roger's copious journals record both the labour and wonder involved in living in twelve acres of meadow, and woodland; the night-time bark of foxes, the viper-bite of s as he cleared scrub or laid hedges, and the fallen stars of glow-worms in the long grass."

"In 1973, Roger Deakin, a British writer and environmental activist, acquired a tumbledown sixteenth-century farmhouse outside the ancient village of , in , and began a restoration, repairing stone walls and replacing roof tiles. Among the attributes of Walnut Tree Farm, as the house was called, was a deep, spring-fed . It didn’t surround the house, as with a fortified castle, but was excavated into the land, in roughly parallel lines, at the front and the back of the property. The moat had served its original, Elizabethan owner as a water supply, a cooler, and a status symbol. Over the centuries, it fell into disrepair, becoming silted up from falling leaves and rotting tree roots. Deakin had the moat dredged to a depth of ten feet; staked a wooden ladder by the bank, near the spreading roots of a tree; and began regularly swimming in the cold, greenish water. He gained what he called a frog’s-eye view of the changing seasons, and an intimate familiarity with the creatures sharing the moat, from to s."