20th-century Sports Figure Quotes

Muhammad Ali

Bruce Lee

Lionel Messi

Roger Federer

Michael Jordan

Jackie Chan

Diego Maradona

Man, if I made one million dollars I would come in at six in the morning, sweep the stands, wash the uniforms, clean out the office, manage the team and play the games.

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years, and I have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?

I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.

I have no trouble with the twelve inches between my elbow and my palm. It's the seven inches between my ears that's bent.

The only way to prove that you're a good sport is to lose.

Golf is a spiritual game. It's like Zen. You have to let your mind take over.

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

Steve Prefontaine

Fear comes in two packages fear of failure, and sometimes, fear of success.

What could be better than walking down any street in any city and knowing you're the heavyweight champion of the world?

The man to beat me hasn't been born yet.

When you're a winner you're always happy, but if you're happy as a loser you'll always be a loser.

Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment.

I'm not buddy-buddy with the players. If they need a buddy, let them buy a dog.

Golf is an awkward set of bodily contortions designed to produce a graceful result.

It's not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it's what you put into the practice.

I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me.

The sea from Dunkirk to Dover during these days of the evacuation looked like any coastal road in England on a bank holiday. It was solid with shipping.

You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry. Don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.

You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too.

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

In 1968, in the midst of the tumultuous 1960s, the Olympics were much more than just another event

The key is not the will to win... everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.

On his Caucasian, Black American, American Indian, Thai, and Chinese ancestry:

Growing up, I came up with this name: I'm a "Cablinasian."

I have found the game to be, in all factualness, a universal language wherever I traveled at home or abroad.

I'm going back to my tour where I belong. The attention was more than I expected. The golf course wasn't a problem. It was just the things around it. All the preparation I've done in the last month weighed on me.

Annika Sörenstam