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The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.

Jesse Owens

After I came home from the 1936 Olympics with my four medals, it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand or have me up to their suite. But no one was going to offer me a job.
JESSE OWENS

Hands Home Job Myself Oneself Reward
For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.
JESSE OWENS

Person Time World
Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.
JESSE OWENS

Athletics Born Friendship Gold Reality
I’d noticed him watching me for a year or so, especially when we’d play games where there was running or jumping.
JESSE OWENS

Game Himself Myself Play Run
The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers – weak, empty fingers. The only time the black fist has significance is when there’s money inside. There’s where the power lies.
JESSE OWENS

Black Fingers Money Power Time Yourself
If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.
JESSE OWENS

Best Himself Oneself Reward Thrill Win Yourself
I always loved running. It was something you could do by yourself and under your own power.
JESSE OWENS

Love Myself Power Run Sports Yourself
It’s like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.
JESSE OWENS

Animal Attachment Death Dog Time
I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn’t a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward.
JESSE OWENS

Best Black Man Myself Oppression Word
To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten.
JESSE OWENS

Run Sports Time
People come out to see you perform and you’ve got to give them the best you have within you.
JESSE OWENS

Best People Performance See Yourself
I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn’t in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I’d learned long ago from Charles Riley, the only victory that counts is the one over yourself.
JESSE OWENS

Athlete Learning Myself Politics Purpose Victory
I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.
JESSE OWENS

Eat Gold Myself Reward
I fought, I fought harder, but one cell at a time, panic crept into my body, taking me over.
JESSE OWENS

Body Fight Hard Time Myself Time
We used to have a lot of fun. We never had any problems. We always ate. The fact that we didn’t have steak? Who had steak?
JESSE OWENS

Food Fun Problem
The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us.
JESSE OWENS

Best Beyond Destination End Leadership Road

The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.

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The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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