Cycling legend Lance Armstrong is one of the most inspirational-sports figures of all time. He survived a tumor that spread to his brain and lungs in 1996, and won the Tour de France a record-breaking seven consecutive years, from 1999 to 2005.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places…they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere."      

                                     E.R.    

Nottingham were beating Leicester but the game was halted when a Leicester player collapsed with a heart attack. Nottingham agreed that the game should be abandoned. When Leicester returned to Nottingham to replay the match Leicester allowed the Nottingham goalkeeper to score.

Wimbledon 1981,
John McEnroe's immortal protest.

"You cannot be serious! That ball was on the line! Chalk flew up! It was clearly in! How could you possibly call that out? There are people looking over -everyone knows it is in the whole stadium- and you call that out?"

The first woman into outer space.

Chaplin's call for humanity.

The final speech of "The Great Dictator", October 1940.

"I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people."      

                                     R.P.    

Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founder of the Grameen Bank. He received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 for spearheading the use of microcredit. .

In 1921, Marianne Beth was the first woman to earn a law degree from the University of Vienna. She wrote frequently on women's issues and was author of “The right of women", 1931. Disbarred by the Nazis in the 1930s, Dr. Beth emigrated to the United States where she taught sociology from 1939 to 1945 at Reed College in Oregon.  

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and  resistance."

                                    R.F.K.    

At four, Wilma Rudolph was diagnosed with polio and lost the use of her left leg. At twenty, she made Olympic history by becoming the first woman to win three gold medals.

"Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose." 

                              A.S.

Bob Dylan performs at the White House The Times They Are a-Changin' 

"Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it." 

                                      P.C.

"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else." 

                                  A.E.

"Justice is indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." 

                              M.L.K.

"Thus shall we live, because we will have created a society which recognises that all people are born equal, with each entitled in equal measure to life, liberty, prosperity, human rights and good governance. Such a society should never allow again that there should be prisoners of conscience nor that any person's human right should be violated." 

                                       N.M.

"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking." 

                                       L.T.

1976 Montreal Olympic Games, Nadia Comaneci is the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded the perfect score of 10.0 for her performance on the uneven bars.

"In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty." 

                                   P. de C.

"In a competition of love we'll all share in the victory, no matter who comes first." 

                              M.A.

The little girl who got an education even though people said she couldn't.

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail."   

                                       H.K.

The Swedish diplomat who had the courage to do the right thing in a desperate time.

"Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men."   

                                     M.K.G.