Arthur Ashe Quotes
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Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.
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When bright young minds can't afford college, America pays the price.
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Martina's like the old Green Bay Packers. You know exactly what she's going to do, but there isn't a thing you can do about it.
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Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.
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There is a syndrome in sports called 'paralysis by analysis.'
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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.
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If I didn't play tennis I probably would have to see a psychiatrist.
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I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do.
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When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If one's reputation is a possession, then of all my possessions, my reputation means most to me.
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We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.
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I may not be walking with you all the way, or even much of the way, as I walk with you now.
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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.
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Seven out of 10 black faces you see on television are athletes. The black athlete carries the image of the black community. He carries the cross, in a way, until blacks make inroads in other dimensions.
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Fear isn't an excuse to come to a standstill. It's the impetus to step up and strike.
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Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.
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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.
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If you're paid before you walk on the court, what's the point in playing as if your life depended on it?
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If I don't ask "Why me?" after my victories, I cannot ask "Why me?" after my setbacks and disasters.
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I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments. That's no contribution to society. [Tennis] was purely selfish; that was for me.
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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.
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Someone once told me that God figured that I was a pretty good juggler. I could keep a lot of balls in the air at one time. So He said, "Let's see if he can juggle another one."
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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?'
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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.
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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.
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Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat.
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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.
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