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Perhaps all our troubles - all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome - began when we stopped living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.

Christopher McDougall

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Christopher McDougall
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 24
Author
Journalist
Writer
BORN TO RUN
Trouble
Greed
Living
Stopped
Running
Illness
Erupt
Nature
Overcoming
Uglier
Way
Began
Obesity
People
Deny
Troubles
Perhaps
Overcome
Violence
Depression

More quotes by Christopher McDougall

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When it comes to mentors, you can't beat survival.
Christopher McDougall
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Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.
Christopher McDougall
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Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.
Christopher McDougall
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If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them.
Christopher McDougall
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I have the idea that running shoes are based on a kind of cult idea - that our feet are flawed and we need shoes to correct those flaws. The shoe companies are in the business of selling shoes. But there's no evidence from running shoe manufacturers that they're right. There's no scientific data that running shoes reduce injury.
Christopher McDougall
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Endurance, after all, is the only reason we even exist. We think of ourselves as nature's deadliest animals, but the truth is, a naked human is the biggest wimp in the wild. We have no fangs, no claws, no strength, and no speed.
Christopher McDougall
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We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.
Christopher McDougall
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We say the rarajipari is the game of life, ' Angel said. 'You never know how hard it will be. You never know when it will end. You can't control it. You can only adjust.
Christopher McDougall
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We wouldn't be alive without love we wouldn't have survived without running maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.
Christopher McDougall
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Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.~Ken Chlouber, Colorado miner and creator of the Leadville Trail 100 mile race
Christopher McDougall
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We are the biggest sissies in the jungle. Every other animal is stronger than we are - they have fangs, they have claws, they have nimbleness, they have speed. We think Usain Bolt is fast - Usain Bolt can get his ass kicked by a squirrel.
Christopher McDougall
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In 'Tarahumara' land, there was no crime, war or theft. There was no corruption, obesity, drug addiction, greed, wife-beating, child abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure, or carbon emissions. They didn't get diabetes, or depressed, or even old: 50-year-olds outran teenagers.
Christopher McDougall
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Only recently have we come up with the technology to turn lazing around into a way of life. We've taken our sinewy, durable, hunter-gatherer bodies and plunked them into an artificial world of leisure.
Christopher McDougall
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He was onto something. Something huge. It wasn't just how to run it was how to live, the essence of who we are as a species and what we're meant to be.
Christopher McDougall
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Running should be free, man.
Christopher McDougall
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it’s easy to get outside yourself when you’re thinking about someone else.
Christopher McDougall
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The words of the social critic Eric Hoffer were ringing true: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.
Christopher McDougall
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The only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.
Christopher McDougall
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Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.
Christopher McDougall
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I received the best advice for running I ever heard: 'You're not going to win, so just relax. If it feels like work, you're running too hard.
Christopher McDougall