If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.
JESSE OWENSOnly by Gods grace have I made it to see today and only by Gods grace will I ever see tomorrow.
More Jesse Owens Quotes
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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.
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The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.
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It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it’s close.
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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.
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Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.
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The only victory that counts is the one over yourself.
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People come out to see you perform and you’ve got to give them the best you have within you.
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The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.
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I always loved running. It was something you could do by yourself and under your own power.
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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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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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I fought, I fought harder, but one cell at a time, panic crept into my body, taking me over.
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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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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.
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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.
JESSE OWENS