The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it—as long as you really believe 100 percent.
—Arnold Schwarzenegger (b.1947) Austrian-American Athlete, Actor, Politician
In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.
—Julia Child (1912–2004) American Cook, Author
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
As I understand it, sport is hard work for which you do not get paid.
—Irvin S. Cobb (1876–1944) American Humorist, Writer, Columnist
Winners make it happen – losers let it happen.
Winners make choices – losers take chances.
Winners never quit and quitters never win.
—Vince Lombardi (1913–70) American Football Coach
The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are their worst.
—Martina Navratilova (b.1956) Czech-born American Sportsperson
I have a lifetime contract. That means I can’t be fired during the third quarter if we are ahead and moving the ball.
—Lou Holtz (1893–1980) American Stage Performer
Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility.
—Billie Jean King (b.1943) American Tennis Player
The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man’s moral nature
—Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) American Economist, Social Critic
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What’s tough is being good every day.
—Willie Mays (1931–2024) American Baseballer
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
Sport is a preserver of health.
—Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) Ancient Greek Physician
There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.
—Roland Barthes (1915–80) French Writer, Critic, Teacher
Said in sport, meant in earnest.
—German Proverb
Academy: A modern school where football is taught.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
Sport inevitably creates deadness of feeling. No one could take pleasure in it who was sensitive to suffering; and therefore its pursuit by women is much more to be regretted than its pursuit by men, because women pursue much more violently and recklessly what they pursue at all.
—Ouida (Maria Louise Rame) (1839–1908) English Novelist
Football today is far too much a sport for the few who can play it well; the rest of us, and too many of our children, get out exercise from climbing up the seats in stadiums, or from walking across the room to turn on our television sets.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
There is a syndrome in sports called “paralysis by analysis.”
—Arthur Ashe (1943–93) American Tennis Player
Sports is like a war without the killing.
—Ted Turner (b.1938) American Businessperson, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist
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 (1943–93) American Tennis Player
The minute you start talking about what you’re going to do if you lose, you have lost.
—George Shultz (1920–2021) American Politician, Economist
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work: but when they seldom come, they wished for come, and nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
So you wish to conquer in the Olympic Games, my friend? And I, too… But first mark the conditions and the consequences. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or not, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and wine at your will. Then, in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, to be severely thrashed, and after all of these things, to be defeated.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
—Robert Ranke Graves (1895–1985) English Poet, Novelist, Critic, Classical Scholar
Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than fifty preaching it.
—Knute Rockne (1888–1931) American College Football Coach
I played golf some time ago with John D. Rockefeller. The other day, I played with Charles M. Schwab…. Both played exactly the same. Neither overreached (or) tried to do more than he was capable of…. Most golfers, like most businessmen, swat the ball with all their might and trust more or less to luck as to the result…. Now, both Rockefeller and Schwab hit a straight ball nine times out of ten. In fact, in the first 17 holes I played with Schwab, he didn’t foozle a single shot. I could drive a ball 25 to 50 yards further than he, but quite often it flew wild. The result was that Schwab licked me decisively.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
Sport strips away personality, letting the white bone of character shine through. Sport gives players an opportunity to know and test themselves.
—Rita Mae Brown (b.1944) American Writer, Feminist
In the great department store of life, baseball is the toy department.
—Unknown
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