Motivation Quote by Dawn Fraser

The line lands like a victory lap taken at walking pace: proud, blunt, and shadowed by a self-audit. Dawn Fraser isn’t selling a tidy inspirational poster. She’s sketching the athlete’s tightrope between ambition and collateral damage, then quietly claiming she stayed on it.

“Make yourself an example” carries the unmistakable weight of sporting celebrity, especially for a woman who became a national symbol in an era that didn’t exactly rush to hand women the microphone. Fraser’s intent is partly instructive: win, yes, but understand that winning makes you legible to other people. You become proof-of-concept. The subtext is that greatness isn’t private; it drafts others into your story, whether you meant to or not.

The pivot - “but don’t hurt anyone on the way up” - is where the quote gets its teeth. It acknowledges the unromantic truth that ascent often involves bruised egos, broken loyalties, institutions bent to favor the star. Fraser frames harm not as melodrama but as a real cost that can be chosen or refused. That “anyone” is broad on purpose: rivals, teammates, officials, even the public who has to live with the culture champions help create.

“I don’t think I did that” is not triumphal; it’s deliberately modest, almost courtroom language. It leaves room for dispute, which is savvy for someone whose career included controversy and conflict with authorities. She’s staking a claim to integrity without pretending she was universally liked - just that she didn’t climb by stepping on bodies. That’s a harder kind of legacy to argue with.