💬 SenQuotes.com
 Quotes

Arthur Ashe Quotes

American tennis player and journalist (d. 1993), Birth: 10-7-1943, Death: 6-2-1993 Arthur Ashe Quotes
1.
One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
Arthur Ashe

2.
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
Arthur Ashe

3.
I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.
Arthur Ashe

4.
Start where you are, use what you have.
Arthur Ashe

5.
You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.
Arthur Ashe

Similar Authors: Cassandra Clare Winston Churchill H. L. Mencken Dave Barry John Steinbeck Jeanette Winterson Michael Jackson Benjamin Disraeli Hunter S. Thompson Frank Herbert Gabriel Garcia Marquez David Brooks Erma Bombeck E. B. White Karl Kraus
6.
From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.
Arthur Ashe

7.
Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.
Arthur Ashe

8.
The world over - 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD 'Why me?'. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD 'Why me?'
Arthur Ashe

Quote Topics by Arthur Ashe: Sports Tennis Winning Inspirational Motivational Life Black Children Athlete Library Play Way Accomplishment Time Fun Sorry Victory Games Sacrifice Success Attitude Names Failure Fear Men Diversity Education People Giving Hero
9.
Throughout my formal education I spent many, many hours in public and school libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were. The current definitive answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries.
Arthur Ashe

10.
Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.
Arthur Ashe

11.
I strongly believe the black culture spends too much time, energy and effort raising, praising, and teasing our black children about the dubious glories of professional sports.
Arthur Ashe

12.
Fear isn't an excuse to come to a standstill. It's the impetus to step up and strike.
Arthur Ashe

13.
Life is like a tennis game. You can't win without serving.
Arthur Ashe

14.
We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.
Arthur Ashe

15.
The best way to judge a life is to ask yourself, "Did I make the best use of the time I had?
Arthur Ashe

16.
Let me put it this way: I think Republicans tend to keep the ball in play, Democrats go for broke.
Arthur Ashe

17.
Wherever I am when you feel sick at heart and weary of life, or when you stumble and fall and don’t know if you can get up again, think of me. I will be watching and smiling and cheering you on.
Arthur Ashe

18.
If I were to say, 'God, why me?' about the bad things, then I should have said, 'God, why me?' about the good things that happened in my life.
Arthur Ashe

19.
There is a syndrome in sports called 'paralysis by analysis.'
Arthur Ashe

20.
There were times when I asked myself whether I was being principled or simply a coward.... I was wrapped in the cocoon of tennis early in life, mainly by blacks like my most powerful mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson of Lynchburg, Virginia. They insisted that I be unfailingly polite on the court, unfalteringly calm and detached, so that whites could never accuse me of meanness. I learned well. I look at photographs of the skinny, frail, little black boy that I was in the early 1950s, and I see that I was my tennis racquet and my tennis racquet was me. It was my rod and my staff.
Arthur Ashe

21.
You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.
Arthur Ashe

22.
The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight.
Arthur Ashe

23.
I take the good with the bad, and I try to face them both with as much calm and dignity as I can muster.
Arthur Ashe

24.
Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.
Arthur Ashe

25.
I have become convinced that we blacks spend too much time on the playing field and too little time in libraries.
Arthur Ashe

26.
I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else.
Arthur Ashe

27.
It doesn't have to glitter to be gold.
Arthur Ashe

28.
When bright young minds can't afford college, America pays the price.
Arthur Ashe

29.
I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there.
Arthur Ashe

30.
I have tried to keep on with my striving because this is the only hope I have of ever achieving anything worthwhile and lasting.
Arthur Ashe

31.
My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.
Arthur Ashe

32.
Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.
Arthur Ashe

33.
I accepted the face that as much as I want to lead others, and love to be around other people, in some essential way, I am something of a loner.
Arthur Ashe

34.
I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments.
Arthur Ashe

35.
Every time you win, it diminishes the fear a little bit. You never really cancel the fear of losing; you keep challenging it.
Arthur Ashe

36.
I don't care who you are, you're going to choke in certain matches. You get to a point where your legs don't move and you can't take a deep breath. You start to hit the ball about a yard wide, instead of inches.
Arthur Ashe

37.
If one's reputation is a possession, then of all my possessions, my reputation means most to me.
Arthur Ashe

38.
We blacks look for leadership in men and women of such youth and inexperience, as well as poverty of education and character, that it is no wonder that we sometimes seem rudderless.... We see basketball players and pop singers as possible role models, when nothing could be further, in most cases, from their capacities.
Arthur Ashe

39.
You really are never playing an opponent. You are playing yourself.
Arthur Ashe

40.
If you're paid before you walk on the court, what's the point in playing as if your life depended on it?
Arthur Ashe

41.
Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it's like to be stepped on, I know what it's like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.
Arthur Ashe

42.
Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis.
Arthur Ashe

43.
This is my career highlight. Getting to the fourth round in the U.S. Open in my first year in the U.S. Open and first year on the tour.
Arthur Ashe

44.
A couple of times a day I sit quietly and visualize my body fighting the AIDS virus. It's the same as me sitting and seeing myself hit the perfect serve. I did that often when I was an athlete.
Arthur Ashe

45.
Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat.
Arthur Ashe

46.
I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems. Rather, the answer is a revival of our ancient commitment to God, who rules over all the peoples of the world and exalts no one over any other, and to the moral and spiritual values which were once legendary in America. We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.
Arthur Ashe

47.
Some folks call tennis a rich people's sport or a white person's game. I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do. Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis. You've got to make a lot of sacrifices and spend a lot of time if you really want to achieve with this sport, or in any sport, or in anything truly worthwhile.
Arthur Ashe

48.
My humanity, in common with all of God's children, gives the greatest flight to my full range of my possibilities.
Arthur Ashe

49.
We must believe in the power of education. We must respect just laws. We must love ourselves, our old and or young, our women as well as our men.
Arthur Ashe

50.
I know I could never forgive myself if I elected to live without humane purpose, without trying to help the poor and unfortunate, without recognizing that perhaps the purest joy in life comes with trying to help others.
Arthur Ashe