“Are you looking for a Negro who won’t fight back?”

The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.

The many of us who attain what we may and forget those who help us along the line we’ve got to remember that there are so many others to pull along the way. The farther they go, the further we all go.

Life is not a spectator sport.

At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion when the National Anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else.

Relationships may change throughout the gift of time, memories stay the same forever in my mind.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

I know that I am a black man in a white world. I know that I never had it made.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

You’re going to be a great player, kid.

Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.

It’s not easy to be a martyr in the field of race relations.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

I’m not goin’ anywhere, I’m right here!

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.