Life doesn’t give you all the practice races you need.
JESSE OWENSIt 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.
More Jesse Owens Quotes
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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.
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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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I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.
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It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it’s close.
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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.
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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 decided I wasn’t going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.
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A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
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Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it and you’ll start believing in it.
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To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten.
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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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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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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?
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He was constantly on me about the job that I was to do and the responsibility that I had upon the campus. And how I must be able to carry myself because people were looking.
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The only victory that counts is the one over yourself.
JESSE OWENS






