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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.

Jesse Owens

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

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

Character Difference Fast
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
Hitler didn’t snub me – it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.
JESSE OWENS

Myself Ourselves President
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
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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