Top 55 Milkha Singh Quotes

There are three legends in sports – Dhyan Chand, myself and Sachin Tendulkar. People will always remember three of us in Indian Sports.

I have only seen movies of my generation – ‘Mother India,’ ‘Shree 420,’ ‘Awaara.’ Those days, we had actors such as Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar.

I could have joined politics during Nehru’s or Indira Gandhi’s time. I don’t want to. I stay away from these things.

It was the quest for survival that took me to the world of sports.

A lot is expected from athletes but we need good coaches as well.

We had nothing in our times. The athletes and sportsmen in those days didn’t earn much money. We worked for the applause, people’s appreciation inspired and motivated us, we ran for the country.

Running had become such an obsession that even when asleep, I would run races in my dreams.

I had joined the army as a sepoy in 1951.

I want to tell people that they should always try to stay calm and speak good things, have control over food by adopting healthy food habits, eat less food and exercise daily.

I have given permission that my medals be transferred from the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in New Delhi to the sports museum in Patiala.

I came from a remote village, I didn’t know what running was, or the Olympics.

As long as you remain true to yourself and continue training with sincerity, nobody can stop you from achieving excellence.

I am very happy that the doors have opened for sportspersons. But I think the first Bharat Ratna should have been given to Dhyan Chand because of what he has achieved.

If you want to make your children a successful doctor, engineer or a sportsperson then you will have to put in double the hard work than that of your children.

There is dirty politics in sports federations.

Athletics talent is more prominent in the villages than in the urban areas because the main factor determining the difference is hard work which is an integral part of an athlete’s training.

Sports authority should hire coaches only on contract basis in athletics and also in other games. The coaches should be told to produce medals in upcoming Olympic Games. Only then will they work day and night and push sportsmen and women to work harder.

No one should suffer what I suffered. I still dread those scenes when man killed man. I lost my parents, most of my family, by running away.

My parents had a small piece of land to earn a living from, but my father always wanted to educate his children.

No one else could do what P.T. Usha has done for this country.

The first time I ever wore a shoe was in 1955 during the trials for the Melbourne Olympics.

I enjoyed watching ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ very much. Many such sports films should be made so that the upcoming generation draws inspiration from the sportspersons of our country, win medals at the Olympics and Asian Games, and make India proud.

I did not know about awards. I just wanted to break the world record and the Olympic record.

Do yoga and exercises daily even if it is for a few minutes only and results would appear in a few days only.

I am happy that my son has been responsible for putting India on the world map in golf.

I believe there is no dearth of talent in India. But what’s missing is the ability to work hard.

I came from the bottom, from nothing. To a man who has nothing in his life, imagine what it’s like to be hoisted on someone’s shoulders.

We were from a village that’s now in Pakistan’s Muzaffargarh district, in Kot Addu tehsil. Our village was 10 km away from the city. The boys had to walk barefoot for 10 km from the village to the school in Kot Addu.

I hope they make many more sports films in future.

I didn’t watch a film after the 1960s. I have no idea who all were the good heroes, directors or producers in the ’80s. The only film I watched after all those years was my own film.

Milkha Singh is living his last days. An earthen lamp’s glow is brightest towards the end, in the same manner I am humbled by the kind of love and respect being showered on me at this age.

I don’t hanker after awards.

In my time, talking to a girl was like talking to God.

My stomach hurts at times, my back is always a problem, and my eyesight is not good. But I still jog every day.

If Milkha Singh is known as the Flying Sikh in the whole world today, the credit goes to General Ayub and to Pakistan.

These days kids are not passionate. They lack will power to go all the way. They want to take the easy route.

My experience made me so hard that I wasn’t even scared of death.

I too have daughters, and it saddens me that people think of daughters as a burden.

During Partition, my parents, my brother and sisters were killed before my eyes.

Not every school in India has athletics as a compulsory sport. They should make it compulsory.

I knew what my fatal error was: After running perilously fast in lane five, I slowed down at 250 meters. I could not cover the lost ground after that – and that cost me the race. After the death of my parents, that is my worst memory. I kept crying for days.

Politicians or well connected people will try to get hold of federations and they don’t think about sportspersons.

Athletics is the mother of all sport and every child must try out it once during his school days.

I lost in my first ever 400m race, the event I almost ruled later.

Every morning I would rise at the crack of dawn and after the usual ablutions, would get into my sports kit and dash off to the track, where I would run two or three miles cross-country, in the company of my coach.

In the Army, I was running for India and I was a soldier who could have died for India.

I wanted Jeev to become doctor or an engineer, but after seeing his talent and interest in golf, I dropped that idea.

When ‘Bhaag Mikha Bhaag’ was released, no matter where I went – Australia, England or Canada, people around the world used to say ‘Farhan is Milkha Singh’s ditto copy.’

If anyone has it in him to work hard, he can rise from the earth and touch the sky.

The new generation I feel does not know about Milka Singh, they don’t know about the hard work I did, what struggles I went through, in Pakistan and India, they know just the name.

I am fit at 88 years of age. I do yoga and also go jogging 2-3 times which has kept me fit and healthy even at this ripe age in which many people keep seeing doctors.

I do not blame the government for not providing infrastructure to athletes. They have given everything for training of athletes.

I loved Farhan’s look in the ‘Toofaan’ teaser. He has made a wonderful physique for the role of a boxer.

Athletes like me, PT Usha, Anju Bobby Gerorge have reached finals in Olympics, and it’s not easy to reach the finals. If Indians were genetically inferior then we wouldn’t have reached even finals.

No matter what the weather was, I would practice for five hours every morning and evening, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. It was this disciplined routine that moulded me into the athlete I became.