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Lewis Pugh Quotes
70 Sourced Quotes
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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I've swum through some very cold and rough seas. I think that's made me more determined than the average person.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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Four-point-two kilometres is a long way for a frozen body to sink.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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Too little confidence, and you're unable to act; too much confidence, and you're unable to hear.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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I don't know of any sport where the goalposts can shift the way they do with endurance swimming.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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The right to have our environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations is our most important human right.
Lewis Pugh
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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?
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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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.
Lewis Pugh
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There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity, which should never be crossed.
When asked: How do you deal with the risks?
Lewis Pugh
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There's nothing more chilling than swimming across open sea, where recently there used to be a solid glacier.
Lewis Pugh
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Everywhere water is under threat. It is our most precious resource. And there is no alternative to it.
Lewis Pugh
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If we pass on an unsustainable environment to our children we have failed them.
Lewis Pugh
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Quote of the day
Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.
Martin Luther
Lewis Pugh
Creative Commons
Born:
December 5, 1969
(age 54)
Bio:
Lewis William Gordon Pugh is an ocean advocate, a maritime lawyer and a pioneer swimmer.
Most used words:
swim
water
people
swimming
mind
big
bones
environment
sea
wanted
oceans
pioneer
fear
nature
thought
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