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 OWENSThe lives of most men are patchwork quilts. Or at best one matching outfit with a closet and laundry bag full of incongruous accumulations. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
More Jesse Owens Quotes
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The only victory that counts is the one over yourself.
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I’d noticed him watching me for a year or so, especially when we’d play games where there was running or jumping.
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We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.
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When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country, and I could not ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. Now what’s the difference?
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I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.
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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.
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Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.
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The lives of most men are patchwork quilts. Or at best one matching outfit with a closet and laundry bag full of incongruous accumulations. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
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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.
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Although I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.
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It’s like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.
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Running is real. It’s all joy and woe, hard as diamond. It makes you weary beyond comprehension, but it also makes you free.
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It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it’s close.
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A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
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It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn’t even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.
JESSE OWENS






