Arthur Ashe Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

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
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
From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.

Arthur Ashe
Racism and sexism must never be an excuse for not doing your best. Racism and sexism will probably always exist but you must always try to rise above them

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

Arthur Ashe
Sometimes, a defeat can be more beautiful and satisfying than certain victories. The English have a point in insisting that it matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game.

Arthur Ashe
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
Race is for me a more onerous burden than AIDS. My disease is the result of biological factors over which we, thus far, have no control. Racism, however, is entirely made by people, and therefore it hurts and inconveniences infinitely more.

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

Arthur Ashe
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
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
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
I'm learning to use others' weaknesses. I don't hammer a man's soft spot constantly, because he may strengthen it. I just save it as a trump up my sleeve for moments when I really need a point.

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

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

Arthur Ashe