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If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.

Jesse Owens

Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.
JESSE OWENS

Friendship Reward
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
Life doesn’t give you all the practice races you need.
JESSE OWENS

Life Need Practice Yourself
It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere – one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.
JESSE OWENS

Bright Enough Hands Kind Morning Myself People
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
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.
JESSE OWENS

Dedication Determination Discipline Dream Effort Reality
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
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.
JESSE OWENS

Best Life Live Man Oneself Time Training
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
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

Animal Bad Enough Live Man Myself Race
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.
JESSE OWENS

Hands Myself Sarcastic
To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten.
JESSE OWENS

Run Sports Time
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
A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
JESSE OWENS

Life Time Training
It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it’s close.
JESSE OWENS

Character Difference Fast
The only victory that counts is the one over yourself.
JESSE OWENS

Inspirational Oneself Victory Yourself
Running is real. It’s all joy and woe, hard as diamond. It makes you weary beyond comprehension, but it also makes you free.
JESSE OWENS

Beyond Freedom Joy Reality Run
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?
JESSE OWENS

Country Difference Live Myself Story
The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred’s ear.
JESSE OWENS

Animal Right Secret Start Weapon
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
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
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
When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.
JESSE OWENS

Hands Himself Man Myself Thinking
I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.
JESSE OWENS

Myself Possible Sports Time
Only by Gods grace have I made it to see today and only by Gods grace will I ever see tomorrow.
JESSE OWENS

Future God Gratitude Myself See
For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.
JESSE OWENS

Person Time World
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

If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.

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If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.

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