Quotes about athlete
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“The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers. We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

Radio broadcast http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/eamon-de-valera/719124-address-by-mr-de-valera/, "On Language & the Irish Nation" (17 March 1943), often called "The Ireland that we dreamed of" speech

Life, Wisdom, Men, God

“I said to one of them, "Look after the baby, I've got washing," because we've got washable nappies. I said, "Look after the baby. Entertain her, do some words," because she's saying words, "Do any words." So I came back after I scraped all the stuff off, and he was going, "Say, ‘Wigan Athletic!’"”

Tamsin Greig (1966) English actress

About her children.
Appearing on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" (31 March 2006)

Baby

“Some athletes use the mind to try and improve stamina and strength. Can I use my mind to take it away?”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

“Suggestions [by employees] are invited on the various matters indicated under the following headings : —
1. New or improved goods.
2. Improvement in method of manufacture.
3. Suggestions appertaining to advertisements or methods likely to increase sales.
4. Improvements with reference to management.
5. Suggestions affecting the social well-being, Athletic and other clubs, Societies, Libraries, Magazine, etc.
6. Any suggestion of whatever character so long as it bears some relation to, or is connected with, the Works at Bournville.”

Edward Cadbury (1873–1948) British businessman

Source: Experiments in industrial organization (1912), p. 212; Partly cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003), Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 39

“From this inhuman pressure doping is born because the athlete feels the imperative of having to be No. 1. I believe instead that sport should be a private pressure, a challenge for yourself.”

Bode Miller (1977) American alpine ski racer

Interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, 16 Feb. 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11385083/

Feeling, Sport

“I never had any training. I never had a guy say to me, "Do it this way, do it that way." When I was growing up, I was the last guy to get picked for every team that I was on. If they needed a pitcher, I pitched. If there was a catcher needed, I caught. First baseman, shortstop, whatever position they needed, that's what I played. I felt I was the best all-around athlete on that particular team. Most of them couldn't do that, everybody wanted to play a position. It didn't matter what position I played. I just had fun and enjoyed it.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Academy of Achievement Interview (1996)

Way, Guy, Training

“Nobody seems to appreciate what an incredible player Wilt was," Russell said at 1997 All-Star Game when the league named and honored its 50 greatest players. "He was the best player of all time because he dominated the floor like nobody else ever could. To be that big and that athletic was special.”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/fran_blinebury/07/15/legend-chamberlain/index.html Athleticism

Game, Star, Time

“Stop the incitement in your media and your schools.
Stop naming public squares and athletic teams after suicide bombers.
And come to the negotiating table when you have prepared your people to forego hatred and renounce terrorism - and Israel will embrace you.
Until that day, there can be no peace with Hamas. Peace at any price isn't peace; it's surrender.”

Eric Cantor (1963) American politician

Eric Cantor (2011) cited in: " Leader Cantor's remarks to AIPAC http://web.archive.org/web/20110526083308/http://majorityleader.gov/newsroom/2011/05/leader-cantors-remarks-to-aipac.html" on majorityleader.gov, posted on May 22, 2011.

People, School, Peace, Suicide

“Ted Seabrooke, my wrestling coach, had a kind of Nietzschean effect on me in terms of not just his estimation of my limited abilities, but his decidedly philosophical stance about how to conduct your life, what you should do to compensate for your limitations. This was essential to me, both as a student—and not a good one—and as a wrestler who was not a natural athlete but who had found something he loved.”

John Irving (1942) American novelist and screenwriter

"John Irving Interviewed by Suzanne Herel." Mother Jones magazine, May/June 1997.

Love, Life, Nature

“As queen, Farah achieved almost immediate popularity. She had several features that pleased the Iranians: she was 'fully Iranian' and also worthy of honour because she descended from the family of the Prophet. She was a brunette with deep black eyes of the kind most Persians cherish. (The Shah's outlandish taste for blondes was not shared by his compatriots.) Farah appeared to be slightly taller than the Shah, but this could not be held against her. The new queen's athletic physique and her well-publicised love of sports disconcerted some religious circles, but even the more conservative Iranians now understood that times were changing.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

The Unknown Life of the Shah (1991)

Love, Family, Sport, Appearance

“Civilization is measured in no small part by these standards. The famous beauty and symmetry of the Greek race in its prime was due in no small part to their general participation in athletic games. This meant development.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Democracy of Sports (1924)

Beauty, Game, Parting

“I started out like most people just finding my local martial arts gym … and it's quite easy to start thinking that whatever you're in is the best thing that you can do, so … I assumed that Taekwondo is the best. … I started thinking, “Well, maybe there's something else that the other arts have offer,” so I started cross-training. Anyway, that got me into competing in mixed martial arts. So, I thought my diet was pretty good … and it was until I got injured … that I actually had some time to sit back and really analyze what I was eating, and I realized I hadn't applied the same scrutiny to my diet as I had to the martial arts training. So I saw a parallel there, that in martial arts there's a lot of nonsense out there, people teaching stuff that really doesn't work, and I'd realized that and started finding the truth in martial arts, and basically I realized I hadn't found the truth in nutrition, so last year I spent over 1,000 hours looking at peer reviewed medical science and realized that a plant-based diet is superior and optimal for health and athletic performance.”

James Wilks (1978) English martial artist

Speech at the Healthy Lifestyle Expo, in Woodland Hills, California (October 12-15, 2012). Video in “MMA Ultimate Fighter - James "Lighting" Wilks - Is Vegan”, in VegSource.com http://www.vegsource.com/news/2012/12/mma-ultimate-fighter---james-lighting-wilks---is-vegan-video.html.

People, Health, Truth, Art

“There is still and must ever be a tremendous amount of manual labor, but to a large extent this has become specialized and too often would be designated correctly as drudgery. The opportunity for education of the mind, however, has greatly increased until it has become well-nigh universal. School and college athletics have become necessary. With the development of our industrial and commercial life, there are more and more those who are engaged in purely clerical activities. All of this makes it more necessary than ever that we should stimulate every possible interest in out of door health-giving recreation.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Democracy of Sports (1924)

Life, Health, Education, School

“The role was very physically challenging and I am not athletic and have never wanted to be. I hate it in fact. I don't go to gyms and for me to have to stay in shape for the role became mind over matter.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

On finishing the last episode of Xena — reported in Kylie Keogh (May 31, 2001) "Xena shoots back", The Daily Telegraph, p. T05.

Hate

“Statistically it is probably the one city in the world where the most people have been killed in arguments over professional athletes.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Travis McGee series, (1966)

People, World

“And now, as so often happened, my brain in a fever took over the datum of the dream and enriched and expanded it. Norman Douglas spoke pedantically on behalf of the buggers. `We have this right, you see, to shove it up. On a road to Capri I found a postman who had fallen off his bicycle, you see, unconscious, somewhat concussed. He lay in exactly the right position. I buggered him with athletic swiftness: he would come to and feel none the worse.’ The Home Secretary nodded sympathetically while the rain wept on to him in Old Palace Yard. `I mean, minors. I mean, there’d be little in it for us if you restricted the act to consenting males over, say, eighteen. Boys are so pliable, so exquisitely sodomizable. You do see that, don’t you, old man?’ The Home Secretary nodded as if to say: Of course, old public-school man myself, old boy. I saw a lot of known faces, Pearson, Tyrwit, Lewis, Charlton, James, all most reasonable, claiming the legal right to maul and suck and bugger. I put myself in the gathering and said, also most reasonable, that it was nothing to do with the law: you were still left with the ethics and theology of the thing. What we had a right to desire was love, and nothing hindered that right. Oh nonsense, he’s such a bore. As for theology, isn’t there that apocryphal book of the Bible in which heterosexuality is represented as the primal curse?”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Love, Books, School, Law

“Everyone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree because cinema does not come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from your knees and thighs.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

Thinking

“The least that government can do for our athletes in general is to show that they have our support. We ask them to carry our flag and compete with the highest possible degree of sportsmanship and excellence while representing our country. Government should be able to ensure their safety.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Rappler http://www.rappler.com/nation/1550-outrage-over-attack-on-filipino-boxer 2012

Support, Country

“We must give up the false dreams of equality and democracy—not so that we could “wake up" to reality; reality is boring—but so that we can take up the new dreams of channelling our energies and labor towards the exploration of our universe, towards the fostering of a new people, who are healthier, stronger, more intelligent, more beautiful, more athletic.”

Richard Bertrand Spencer (1978) American white supremacist

People, Beauty, Dreams, Democracy

“Oh, yeah, y’all are talking about those racist white police, yep, the ones who guard the multi-millionaire athletes. No? Oh, I see, you’re talking about the epidemic of police shooting unarmed black men — except that more whites are shot than blacks. As opposed to the genocidal level of blacks killing blacks all over the same inner cities that boast NFL teams.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Folks, you’re missing the point about the NFL protests (19 October 2017)

Men

“I'm really concerned about the quality of education in the United States. I think it's going down, and I don't think we spend enough money on it. It's unhealthy for our society that we remove ourselves more and more every day from books, from reading, from writing. All areas of education need more emphasis. I think we're a bit lazy here in America. I believe in the ideal of the classic liberal education, and I also think athletics are very important to the education of young people.”

Tommy Lee Jones (1946) American actor and film director

Interview interview (1995)

Money, People, Books, Education

“Animals deserve to be treated with kindness. I love animals, and I don't believe humans can treat them as commodities and cause them harm. … I officially became a vegan on June 1, 2009. Even though it's quite a change in terms of nutrition, I have never felt better or so healthy in my life. Considering that I'm a professional athlete, that's quite important … I understand the impact I have in joining many groups like PETA. I don't do it to force people to be vegetarian or vegan. I just want to educate people on the subject to make this world a better place. … Many people … refuse to get educated on the matter because just like me, they're sensitive and afraid to make a change. But my friends, that change is not bad at all. … Millions of people around the globe are going vegetarian for the sake of animals, their health and the environment. I encourage you to give it a try too!”

Georges Laraque (1976) Canadian ice hockey player

“A Vegan Life”, in georgeslaraque.com (August 2009) https://georgeslaraque.com/vg-vegan.php.

Love, Life, People, Health

“This is not about the aesthetics: there is a rule in a society: "Whoever you deal with, makes you become them", therefore watching the efforts of para-athletes, which are nevertheless very admirable, can bring the temporary mobility disorder. If we want humanity to develop, the television should show us people who are healthy, beautiful, strong, honest and wise - not perverts, murderers, weaklings, losers, idiots or, unfortunately, invalids.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

Polish: I nie chodzi o estetykę: w społeczeństwie obowiązuje zasada: „Z kim przestajesz, takim się stajesz”, więc i oglądanie – godnych podziwu skądinąd – wysiłków para-sportowców może przynieść – przejściowe, na szczęście – zaburzenia w motoryce!). Jeśli chcemy, by ludzkość się rozwijała, w telewizji powinnismy ogladac ludzi zdrowych, pieknych, silnych, uczciwych, madrych – a nie zboczeńców, morderców, słabeuszy, nieudaczników, kiepskich, idiotów – i inwalidów, niestety. Source: Blog of the autor http://3obieg.pl/para-olimpiada-czyli-paranoja

People, Beauty, Effort, Strong

“When I began singing 'Conga' athletes from all over the world busted out of formation to dance with me, [and] I thought: 'Wow, what a great choreography!.' I thought it was planned. But then the tower started shaking and I thought: 'Great, first the bus, then the boat, now the tower!”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment after the Olympic Closing Ceremonies in 1996
2007, 2008

World, Singing, Dance

“Dodgeball? My children were playing dodgeball? That cruel, brutal, violent schoolyard game so mercilessly satirized in the 2004 film with Ben Stiller? The game, more important, that exemplified everything that was wrong with my childhood in suburban New Jersey, a short, pasty-faced Jewish girl in a town full of scrubbed, blond, athletic WASPs, their long tanned limbs toned from years of tennis lessons and country club swim teams? Dodgeball? Over my dead body.”

Ayelet Waldman (1964) American- Israeli writer

Salon.com column http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/waldman/2005/06/06/dodgeball/index.html?sid=1350454

Children, Girl, Game, Childhood

“The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.”

Stella Gibbons book Cold Comfort Farm

Source: Cold Comfort Farm (1932), Chapter 1.

Education, Art, Parent

“My favorite athletes of any Olympics are always the African distance runners. You never have to drug test an African distance runner.
"Are you on drugs?"
"No, I'm looking for food."
And I'm sure in Kenya they have a chicken that can run a sub 2-hour marathon…. One of my favorite runners of all time was Abebe Bikila. He was an Ethiopian distance runner and he won the Rome Olympics [marathon] running barefoot. He was then sponsored by Adidas. He ran the next Olympics, he carried the fuckin' shoes. No performance enhancement there.”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

Food, Shoe, Time

“Surely these fine athletes, those boys of summer, have found their measure of ruin.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Lines On The Transpontine Madness, p. xxi

Boy, Summer

“I had a trumpet, but I didn't want to be a trumpet player. I wanted to be some type of athlete or in some type of scholarly activity, be a chemist or something—I had my little chemistry set, and I like playing with it.”

Wynton Marsalis (1961) American jazz musician

Attributed

“All the genres of philosophy, science, high art, athletics and politics were invented by men. But by the Promethean law of conflict and capture, woman has a right to seize what she will and vie with man on her own terms.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 9

Men, Law, Art, Science

“Romans disapproved of Greek sports because the athletes competed nude. That was shocking. On the other hand, people dripping with blood and dying for entertainment was fine. This is strangely similar to the moral standards of today's commercial television and family movies.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

On Equilibrium (2001)

People, Family, Sport

“On the 2004 Summer Olympics: "Nobody proposed me anything to do with the Olympics. Nothing. Maybe the Olympics have become too much of a supermarket now. The other athletics events have more of the spirit of the Olympics."”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

2005

Summer

“But the most important of all is the spiritual patrimony, because it alone bears the seal of eternity, it alone transcends all times. The ancient Greeks are with us today not because of their physiques, no matter how athletic--those are only ashes now--nor because of their material wealth, if they had such, but because of their culture.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

Time, Wealth

“I have used this [vegan] diet since 2008. I first tried it when I was preparing for my challenge of WBC super lightweight champion Junior Wittier -- my first world title fight -- and after seeing the results it gave me I have tried to stay as loyal to it as possible. It helps keep my body clean and it provides me with a tremendous amount of energy due to my body spending less energy breaking down foods like meats. This is a big key factor in my fitness. … The energy is always there. I feel so alive. My senses and reflexes are so acute. … With a vegan diet you always have energy, so much that sometimes I have trouble sleeping at night. You feel light. You don't feel bulky or heavy. This would benefit any athlete in any sport.”

Timothy Bradley (1983) American boxer

"Timothy Bradley Explains His Vegan Diet, The Benefits", in BoxingScene.com (30 September 2013) http://www.boxingscene.com/timothy-bradley-explains-his-vegan-diet-benefits--70134

World, Food, Feeling, Sense

“The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers. … Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity, I must leave to younger athletes to encounter and lop off the false branches which have been engrafted into it by the mythologists of the middle and modern ages.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853-1854), edited by H. A. Washington, Vol. 7, pp. 210, 257
Posthumous publications

Happiness, Age, Religion, Falseness

“From the kids on the neighborhood Stag Athletic Club baseball team on the Hill. We went to a movie one afternoon, and there was one of those yogi characters in the picture. Coming out of the joint, one of the kids looked at me, started laughing, and said: "Hey, Berra walks just like that yogi in the movie."”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

I've been Yogi ever since. As quoted in "Yogi Credits Dickey For His Climb" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ykIaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tCMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6640%2C6523488 by Harry Grayson, in The Hendersonville Times-News (Thursday, November 22, 1951), p. 8.

“So my change in diet was really a gradual process. I had cut meat out of my diet and then had a hard time trying to reintroduce it, same thing with dairy. The transition was nearly complete. The last thing I had to cut out was the eggs. I had met some healthy athletes that adhere to a vegan diet and I just believe it's a super healthy way to go. I don't even like to call it a diet because it's not something I plan on stopping. It's truly a lifestyle choice for me.”

David Zabriskie (1979) road bicycle racer

"5 Minutes With Dave Zabriskie" https://web.archive.org/web/20101124034627/http://www.pelotonmagazine.com/Feedzone/content/6/210/5-Minutes-With-Dave-Zabriskie, interview with Peloton Magazine (November 2010).

Way, Change, Time

“genuine continence and virginity are rare and costly achievements - admirable and really extraordinary; the real thing, nota bene, not simply a shrivelling of Eros-power by means of life-long taboo injections. The Ancients knew this - they called chastity, honestly, simply and humbly, a gift, a charisma, to be implored from God with tears and in humiliating experience - not just a simple athletic feat of will-power and self-control.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights p. 21 Diaries 1951.

Life, God, Tear

“Leave the earth to the strong and athletic,
And the sea to adventure upon.
But the sun and the sand
No contractor can copy;
We lie in the land
Of the lotus and poppy;
We vegetate, calm and aesthetic,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), Pretty Halcyon Days

Lie, Strong, Sun, Sea

“Time study is the art of recording, analyzing, and synthesizing the time of the elements of any operation, usually a manual operation, but it has also been extended to mental and machinery operations.
It is one of the many remarkable inventions of Dr. Taylor while he was working at the Midvale Steel Works. It differs from the well-known process of timing the complete operation, as, for instance, the usual method for timing the athlete, in that the timing of time study is done on the elements of the process. Much ridiculous criticism has been put forward by well-meaning but uninformed persons, who claim that timing a worker down to a three hundredth of a minute is unkind, inhuman, and conducive to the worst form of slavery ever known.
On the contrary, obtaining precise information regarding the smallest elements into which an art or a trade can be subdivided, and examining them separately, is the method adopted hi all branches of scientific research.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Primer of scientific management, 1912, p. 7

Art, Study, Time, Personality

“And one laughs out with an exultant joy.
An athlete he - Maybe his young limbs strain
In some remembered game, and not in vain
To win his side the goal - Poor crippled boy,
Who in the waking world will never run again.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, Night Duty

World, Game, Boy, Joy

“Thy money, thy office, thy reputation are nothing; put away these phantom clothings, and stand like an athlete stripped for the battle.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 17

Money, Clothes

“Being a mom is my number one job. My son [Nayib, 27] lives in Los Angeles and he has his own company where he works on music and film projects, but he calls me every day. Emily [who is 12] is very athletic; she plays tennis and basketball. I love going to her games. If she needs help with her home work, I'll sit with her. She also is very musical -- she writes poetry and plays the guitar. I always tell both my kids, "Find what makes you happy. The money will come regardless of what you do, and more or less of it is not going to be what makes you happy. Spending hours at something you enjoy will."”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Latina Magazine (September, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love, Money, Happiness, Music

“When I became vegan I stopped training for myself and started training with a purpose greater than my own. Veganism for me is about mindfulness. I do this to liberate animals. … Before I went vegan I had tendonitis, and I would get joint aches and ligament strains, and my knees would be sore. All that went away as soon as I switched to a wholefood plant-based diet. It’s anti-inflammatory, and your digestive system gets a break. … I didn’t understand what it meant to be an athlete. I was big, muscularly, but I was swollen; it wasn’t ‘healthy big’. Now I’m leaner, sharper, quicker, and my mind’s sharper too.”

Tim Shieff (1988) American freerunner

"An interview with vegan parkour wonder Tim Shieff" https://www.vegansociety.com/whats-new/blog/interview-vegan-parkour-wonder-tim-shieff, interview with The Vegan Society (11 March 2016).

Understanding, Animals, Training

“I began [to portray president Kennedy ] with fragmentary sketches—first in charcoal, then in casein, sometimes just heads, sometimes the whole figure. For the first session (during a Medicare conference), I sat on top of a 6-foot ladder to get an unimpeded view of him. Concentrating on bone structure, most of my first sketches of him made him look twenty years younger. This was also because the positions he assumed were those of a college athlete. I made about thirty sketches at the first session and rushed back to a big studio that had been turned over to me by the Norton Gallery, made further drawing combining different aspects, and finally, after a couple days, decided on the proportions and size of the first canvas—4 by 8 feet. In succeeding sessions of sketching, I was struck by the curious faceted structure of light over his face and hair—a quality of transparent ruddiness. This play of light contributed to the extraordinary variety of expressions.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Painting a Portrait of the President', Elaine de Kooning (1964)

Light, Drawing

“But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability? Objections such as "these are not one-dimensional abilities" apply equally to cows, horses and dogs and never stopped anybody in practice. I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question?”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins, From the Afterword, The Herald Scotland, (November 20, 2006) http://www.heraldscotland.com/from-the-afterword-1.836155

Death, Dogs, Music, Mathematics

“I want to say the first thing that Qaddafi, he thinks that we are six million human beings, nameless. That’s how Qaddafi is looking at us. In our country, when Qaddafi’s regime, there’s no names, can mention except Qaddafi’s names. No heroes, even athletes or singers. We knew after the revolution that there was an office to try to disappear the stars. If there is any names, singers, we have the experience that there were singer idol in Beirut, big event between all Arab countries, and he won and after that when he come back to Libya, and we didn’t hear about him, he disappeared.
So, now I want to tell you that the whole population needs rehabilitation from Qaddafi’s regime. Comprehensive repression for all the people, all the details, chaos, turmoil that he tried to put the country through during the 42 years, so he tried consolidating power in his hands and demands the various state institutions.”

Salwa Bugaighis (1963–2014) Libyan activist

Interview with Salwa Bugaighis, 2012

People, Star, Thinking, Country

“What's up with the racewalkers? I mean I respect them as athletes but come on… a contest to see who can walk the fastest is like having a contest to see who can whisper the loudest.”

Bob Costas (1952) American sportscaster

On the September 24, 2000 Olympic w:racewalk broadcast, quoted in "No Respect for Olympic Racewalking" https://www.verywellfit.com/no-respect-for-olympic-racewalking-3435871

“Father thinks about the three races, yellow, black, and white. Orientals can contribute in the spiritual aspect, white people can contribute in the analytical, scientific area, while black people can contribute in the physical area-physical educational development of physical fitness, the area of health. That's one of the reasons Glenda Moody's project with black young people is very fantastic. From now on, two thirds of the athletes may come from black people. Even basketball teams have a dominant population of black people. The talented area of black people is in this physical aspect. So, the short cut for black peoples' achievement in this world is the physical area. So, Father has a special concern in this area.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Master Speaks: Address To Prayer And Fast Participants, Part 1, (1974-07-29 http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon74/SM740729.htm)

People, Health, World, Education

“Sure, folks have a First Amendment right of free speech and freedom of expression. But what happens when all of this is ill-conceived and misguided in its core? How racist can it be for multi-millionaire black athletes to have whites paying large sums of money to watch them play a game… and buy their jerseys?”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Folks, you’re missing the point about the NFL protests (19 October 2017)

Money, Game, Freedom

“I really don't know why I clicked. I didn't want to be a dancer, I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally.”

Gene Kelly (1912–1996) American dancer, actor, singer, director, producer and choreographer

Quoted in "Gene Kelly's Musical Memories" by Rex Reed, in The Chicago Tribune (November 29, 1970)

Way, Nature

“People like to come up to me and tell me that I've got nice ink. Except these tattoos aren't just decorations. They are declarations. Every tattoo I have tells its own story about who I am. Drug-free. Honor. And a war against the system. See I'm not some punk kid looking for the next thrill. I'm a highly disciplined athlete, craving to compete with the very best. My obsession is competition and my addiction is wrestling. My name, is C…M… Punk.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Extreme Championship Wrestling. July 11th, 2006.
Extreme Championship Wrestling

War, People, Tattoo

“I think the organization, need to take a step outside the box, allowing the public to get more involved, the more the main media are aware of us women athletes, the easier it becomes for the regular old Joe's and Jane's to accurately get custom too us. Just like everything else that being accepted in society, if you can remember, not so long ago, the gay community had the hardest time being accepted, kudos to them for holding their ground, by not being afraid of the aftermath… BAM!!!!! So what happen to the gay community for holding their ground? Well, after it was all said and done, the public look upon the gay community, as another part of society.”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

2009-05-30
5 Questions with Iris Kyle
Muscular Development
Internet
http://forums.musculardevelopment.com/showthread.php/62827-Iris-Kyle
Sourced quotes, 2009

Women, Communication, Thinking, Time

“Unlike most, a ball player must confront two deaths. First, between the ages of thirty and forty he perishes as an athlete. Although he looks trim and feels vigorous and retains unusual coordination, the superlative reflexes, the major league reflexes, pass on. At a point when many of his classmates are newly confident and rising in other fields, he finds that he can no longer hit a very good fast ball or reach a grounder four strides to his right. At thirty-five he is is experiencing the truth of finality. As his major league career is ending, all things will end. However he sprang, he was always earthbound. Mortality embraces him. The golden age has passed in a moment. So will all things. So will all moments.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Lines On The Transpontine Madness, p. xx

Death, Truth, Age, Feeling

“The farmer needs to learn different skills if he wants to cultivate, just as the doctor and hunter need to learn many things if they are to heal or hunt. And so must he who wishes to gain from the scripture and from Christ learn all rational and logical skills. He must go to geometry, music, grammar and philosophy itself and take from them what is useful, in order to defend his faith against those who plot to destroy it. If he does not do this, he is, as Plato says, like the athlete who turns up unprepared for the games.”

Eric Osborn (1922–2007)

Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge University Press: 2008), p. 63

Faith, Music, Game, Learning

“Standing still as a statue in the October shadows, he looked, grotesquely, more like a patriot than anything usually seen on a baseball field. A trick of light perhaps. Yet what famous athlete last died for a cause bigger than himself? Clemente could sometimes seem like a pest, a nagging narcissist, with only his burningly serious play to deny it. Yet when that plane crashed carrying relief supplies to Nicaragua we saw what he had meant all along. It was like the old Clemente crashing into the right field wall in a losing game: the act of a totally serious man.
By chance I met Clemente once, in the humble role of autograph-seeker. He was doing wind sprints down at the Pirate training camp in Bradenton, Florida. And although I claimed I was getting an autograph for my son (true, for a change), he looked at me with a hidalgo’s contempt – at a grown man simpering over a blunt pencil; he turned his back abruptly and did another wind sprint, then slashed his name onto my scorecard and sauntered away. To hell with you, Clemente, I thought. But on the way out, I saw him funning with three old ladies from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I have never seen sweeter courtesy.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

From the foreword to Clemente! (1973) by Kal Wagenheim

Way, Game, Hell, Light

“[I chose vegetarianism] in 1989, for animal rights reasons, primarily. … I feel that simply living your life in a pointed way is activism in itself, and I want to be an example for other current or potential vegan/vegetarian athletes, to show them that they're not alone and it can be done.”

Adam Myerson (1972) American professional bicycle racer

"Adam Myerson - Cycling" http://www.organicathlete.org/post/vegan-athlete-adam-myerson#.W2G2Iv4Ukdc, interview with OrganicAthlete (September 16, 2004).

Life, Way, Feeling, Animals

“That summer I was nominated to go to the Team Birkie ski camp for the best high school cross-country skiers in the state. … The camp served vegetable lasagna, all kinds of salads, and freshly baked whole wheat bread. … I didn't have any choice, so I ate it all. And I couldn't believe how good it tasted! What was even more amazing was how great I felt. I trained more, and more often, at that camp than I ever had before. And I had never felt better, stronger. I suspected that what I was eating had something to do with how I was feeling, but it wasn't until years later, when I began to study the connection between diet and exercise, nutrition and health, that I learned the importance of diet for everyone — not just athletes. I would learn that a plant-based diet meant more fiber, which sped food through the digestive tract, minimizing the impact of toxins. The same diet also meant more vitamins and minerals; more substances like lycopene, lutein, and beta carotene, which helps protect against chronic disease. And it would mean less refined carbohydrates and trans fats, both implicated in heart disease and other ailments.”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 4, pp. 31-32

Health, Disease, School, Food

“It started with me being a vegetarian, and then it eventually moved towards veganism. Now it's permanent. It's a true way of life. As a professional athlete, my diet helps me tremendously. There's no difficulty in me making weight before fights, or maintaining it. I feel better than ever, light on my feet… Heck, I even think with a more clear mind, all from my eating the right choices for me and my body. I research everyday on veganism, learning new things daily, which is pretty cool.”

Bryant Jennings (1984) boxer

"Exclusive: Bryant Jennings: The Man Behind The Gloves" https://hypefreshmag.com/culture/exclusive-bryant-jennings-the-man-behind-the-gloves, interview with Hypefresh Magazine (April 18, 2015).

Life, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“I often hear people call climbing a selfish, egocentric pursuit. I consider this idea a lot. On the surface, as a sport or activity, this may be true. But for most soul climbers, climbing has never been merely about athletics. Climbing has shown me how to look beyond myself and my own desires. It has taught me how to be a part of a community, rather than living in a narrow world of my own making. I have learned, painfully, how to accept help from others. I have learned that my powerful emotions can be my greatest strength, as well as my greatest weakness. Physically and intellectually, climbing has tugged me into the larger world, beyond my own culture and comfort zone. Above all, climbing has shown me the existence of forces beyond the seen world. It has taught me to ponder the meaning of reality. It has shown me that I am small.”

Steph Davis (1973) American rock climber

High Infatuation: A Climber's Guide to Love and Gravity (2007)

People, World, Soul, Communication

“These days too many children's movies are infected by the virus of Winning, as if kids are nothing more than underage pro athletes, and the values of Vince Lombardi prevail: It's not how you play the game, but whether you win or lose. This is a movie that breaks with that tradition, that allows its kids to be kids, that shows them in the insular world of imagination and dreaming that children create entirely apart from adult domains and values. There was a moment in the film when Rodriguez hit a line drive directly at the pitcher's mound, and I ducked and held up my mitt, and then I realized I didn't have a mitt, and it was then I also realized how completely this movie had seduced me with its memories of what really matters when you are 12.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sandlot-1993 of The Sandlot (7 April 1993) Reviews, Three star reviews

Children, World, Dreams, Imagination

“My belief in how plant-based nutrition could boost athletic performance while also reducing the strain on the environment was, at the time, considered fringe at best. … Ten years later, it's now common for people to speak of their “plant-based diet.” Even “vegan” is a familiar word, seen on the most conventional restaurants' menus. The importance of avoiding animal products in our diet, whether for heath, physical and mental performance, environmental, ethical, or a combination of these reasons, is now well understood and widely accepted.”

Brendan Brazier (1975) Canadian triathlete, publisher, writer, editor

Preface to the 10th Anniversary Edition
The Thrive Diet

People, Time, Animals

“Bill Mayer, then the managing editor of the 'Lawrence Journal-World' recalled on of Wilt's impressive athletic feats: "We played Oklahoma in basketball on a friday night, here in Lawrence(, Kansas), When Oklahoma had one helluva team. And they pounded the living daylights out of Wilt, just beat him to a pulp. I think he got 32 points. This was on a friday, and the finals of the Big Seven indoor track championship were the next night in Kansas city in the Municipal Auditorium. Wilt goes in, and with a minimum of practice during the week-he had just been fiddling around-he sets a school record and ties for the Big Seven championship, jumping 6' 6 3/4""”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

Wilt: Larger than Life, Robert Cherry
Athleticism

World, School, Thinking, Night

“Obviously, the health benefits of being vegan are written in stone but I honestly believe the most benefit to me being vegan is that I do not carry the burden of guilt that I would have to endure knowing that I abused others for my own 'benefit'. … Veganism is everything to me. It touches every part of my life. It is my life. I could not begin to imagine living my life any other way. … Often people think we are weak in body and mind. They mistake our compassion for weakness. … My strengths as an athlete are that I am not an athlete for myself. I am doing it for the benefit of others, which makes me work much harder to achieve. I am not selfish enough to want something this badly for myself. It makes me push myself that bit harder knowing that by doing well I can possibly convince others to consider a vegan lifestyle.”

Fiona Oakes (1966) British marathon runner

"Interview with Fiona Oakes: Vegan Marathon Runner", in Viva la Vegan! (31 May 2012) http://www.vivalavegan.net/list/3-articles/294-interview-with-fiona-oakes-vegan-marathon-runner.html.

Life, People, Health, Way

“You know what I wish for? I wish for an NFL that produced a man like Pat Tillman! Y'all remember him, chances are these young folks do not. Pat Tillman was an outstanding college football athlete from Arizona State University, the Sun Devils. Tillman played professional football for the Arizona Cardinals but he answered a greater call of duty – and not a video game.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Folks, you’re missing the point about the NFL protests (19 October 2017)

Game, Universe, Chance, Sun

“Human beings are religious. We don't all have to be, any more than we all have to be musical, or athletic, or humorous; but as long as there are human beings, there will be religion to offer warmth to those who can believe its stories and its metaphysics, while those who can't will be left with a paler, colder flame.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism (2009)

Religion, Music

“When we come before the school board, most often we do not face those interested in the education of our children, but those interested in the maintenance of power. These contests are war. Any other paradigm is an illusion. It is not a mere contest, like athletes plunging down the hill on skis for the fastest time. It is not a dance in which the most graceful will be rewarded with a medal. This is war. Once we understand that the struggle is war, we can wage war and win.
The key to winning any war is to control the war. This does not mean I seek to control my opponent.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: How to Argue and Win Every Time (1995), Ch. 12 The Unbeatable Power Argument : Delivering the Knockout p. 196

War, Children, Education, School

“It has changed a bit, of course. The speed and all that. But let me tell you something: in the olden times, let's say the year, I don't know, in the Sixties for instance, we would eat a plate of spaghetti and run out onto the pitch. Then people started saying 'they're too full', meaning you'd get bloated like a pig if you ate spaghetti. But this shows you those guys were clever because nowadays all the medical experts recommend pasta for athletes and footballers because you digest it slowly.”

Alfredo Di Stéfano (1926–2014) Argentine association football player

The Guardian interview (2008)

People, Guy, Change, Time

“The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance.”

Robert A. Heinlein book To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Source: To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987), p. 370 (Ace 1988)

People

“To him, a ball game wasn't a mere athletic contest. It was a knock-'em-down, crush-'em, relentless war.”

Moe Berg (1902–1972) baseball player, spy

Moe Berg, interview in Ty Cobb (1975) by John McCallum, p. xii - 
Context: Ty was an intellectual giant. He was the most fascinating personality I ever met in baseball. To him, a ball game wasn't a mere athletic contest. It was a knock-'em-down, crush-'em, relentless war. He was their enemy, and if they got in his way he ran right over them.

War, Game

“All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In the service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Cordelia's Honor (1996), "Author's Afterword"
Context: All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, or a scientist, or an artist, or an independent business creator. In the service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe — if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again.

Pleasure, Business, Time

“On the other hand, our highest types of beauty are those which would be common under decreased gravitation.
The "daughter of the gods, divinely tall," and the leaping athlete, please us by the slight triumph over the earthward pull which their stature or spring implies.”

William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)
Context: It is curious that the popular conceptions of evil and malignant beings are of the type that would be produced by increased gravitation — toads, reptiles, and noisome creeping things — while the arch fiend himself is represented as perhaps the ultimate form which could be assumed by a thinking brain and its necessary machinery were the power of gravitation to be increased to the highest point compatible with existence — a serpent crawling along the ground. On the other hand, our highest types of beauty are those which would be common under decreased gravitation.
The "daughter of the gods, divinely tall," and the leaping athlete, please us by the slight triumph over the earthward pull which their stature or spring implies.

God, Beauty, Spring, Daughters

“Athletes as a rule are stronger than their backers; yet the weaker presses the stronger to put forth all his efforts.”

Jerome (345–420) Catholic saint and Doctor of the Church

Letter 118
Letters

Effort

“Sweet it is to lay aside the weight of the body and to soar into the pure bright ether. Do you dread poverty? Christ calls the poor blessed. (Luke 6:20) Does toil frighten you? No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow. Are you anxious as regards food? Faith fears no famine. Do you dread the bare ground for limbs wasted with fasting? The Lord lies there beside you. Do you recoil from an unwashed head and uncombed hair? Christ is your true head. Does the boundless solitude of the desert terrify you? In the spirit you may walk always in paradise. Do but turn your thoughts there and you will be no more in the desert.”
Libet, sarcina corporis abiecta, ad purum aetheris evolare fulgorem. Paupertatem times? sed beatos Christus pauperes appellat. Labore terreris? at nemo athleta sine sudore coronatur. De cibo cogitas? sed fides famem non timet. Super nudam metuis humum exesa ieiuniis membra collidere? sed Dominus tecum iacet. Squalidi capitis horret inculta caesaries? sed caput tuum Christus est. Infinita eremi vastitas te terret? sed tu paradisum mente deambula. Quotiescumque illuc cogitatione conscenderis, toties in eremo non eris.

Jerome (345–420) Catholic saint and Doctor of the Church

Letter 14, 10; Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001.htm Letters

Fear, Faith, Food, Solitude

“Sangakkara: It's a great sport to play. It's a very special sport because it's one that's got a certain character to it that is not present in other sports. But there's also an expectation of a cricketer that is to be much more than in any other sport. So it's a great test of character for a young kid, but at the same time, it's a great skilful athletic sport that's a viable profession that gives great opportunities as long as you understand that playing this game to the best of your abilities in the most honest manner possible is what will open those doors for you.”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

So if you're taking up the sport, take it up seriously. Have fun, enjoy it, otherwise you won't do well, but when you do get those opportunities, ensure that you leave a mark. "Leadership, at times, is a lonely place: Kumar Sangakkara" http://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/78506/leadership-at-times-is-a-lonely-place-kumar-sangakkara-former-sri-lanka-cricket-team-captain (Interview; March 9, 2016)

Game, Understanding, Sport, Time

“You must have form — performance. The thing itself is indescribable, but it is felt like athletic form.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Originally delivered at a poetry reading at Princeton University (26 October 1937), published in Collected Poems, Prose & Plays (1995)
General sources
Context: When I see young men doing so wonderfully well in athletics, I don’t feel angry at them. I feel jealous of them. I wish that some of my boys in writing would do the same thing. … You must have form — performance. The thing itself is indescribable, but it is felt like athletic form. To have form, feel form in sports — and by analogy feel form in verse. One works and waits for form in both. As I said, the person who spends his time criticizing the play around him will never write poetry. He will write criticism — for the New Republic.

“How I began to write is different than how I became a writer. They are two different things. Many people write but they do not become writers. To become a writer is a job. It involves planning and it affects all parts of your life. Even what you eat—being a writer means not eating food with too much rich sauce to avoid taking a long afternoon nap! It’s like being a professional athlete. And a writer must choose between being a sprinter who writes a book, and being a writer who creates an oeuvre. If you want to create an oeuvre, you have to be careful not to put all your energy into the first book. You have to have a vision for the long term...”

Dany Laferrière (1953) Haitian Canadian novelist and journalist

On how he became a writer in “An Interview with Dany Laferrière” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/an-interview-with-dany-laferriere-jessie-chaffee (WWB Daily, 2016)

Life, People, Books, Food

“While its true that masculinity must be forced and fostered, this is also true of any human potentiality. One must be forced, or force oneself to learn a language or play an instrument or solve mathematical equations. No one calls an accomplished dancer, painter, athlete or singer a phony because it took years of disciplined practice and some kind of nurturing environment to become what they are- for them to develop their talents to their full potential. On the contrary, to ignore these talents is considered a tragedy.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

pg 31
A More Complete Beast (2018)

Mathematics, Learning

“At first, I wasn’t too sure about becoming a vegetarian. … In the beginning it was for athletic reasons, but later I became more concerned about life itself. I won’t go too deeply into it, but there is a religious part and meditative part of vegetarianism for me. … As far as I know, I was the only vegetarian wrestler around. … Well, when I got away from animal foods, I became closer to God. That’s what happened to me. I was more conscious of the good things in life. I was more conscious of other people. And I was conscious of love.”

Killer Kowalski (1926–2008) Canadian professional wrestler

"A Vegetarian Travel Guide exclusive interview with the world-famous wrestler... Walter "Killer" Kowalski" https://www.vegetarianusa.com/feature_articles/sports/Kowalski.html, interview by Barry Harris, VegetarianUSA.com.

Love, Life, God, People

“The puzzle is why so many people live so badly. Not so wickedly, but so inanely. Not so cruelly, but so stupidly. There is little to admire and less to imitate in the people who are prominent in our culture. We have celebrities but not saints. Famous entertainers amuse a nation of bored insomniacs. Infamous criminals act out the aggressions of timid conformists. Petulant and spoiled athletes play games vicariously for lazy and apathetic spectators. People, aimless and bored, amuse themselves with trivia and trash. Neither the adventure of goodness nor the pursuit of justice gets headlines.”

Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) American translator

Living the Message: Daily Reflections with Eugene H. Peterson (1996), p. 114

People, Justice, Game

“Drinking lots of Coca-Cola will not make you young, will not make you healthy, and will not make you athletic – rather, it increases your chances of suffering from obesity and diabetes. Yet for decades Coca-Cola has invested billions of dollars in linking itself to youth, health and sports – and billions of humans subconsciously believe in this linkage.”

Yuval Noah Harari book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Health, Youth, Making love, Drink

“The Greeks believed that an athlete who had represented his community at a national competition, and won, had thereby conferred a notable distinction on his city. His victory was a testament to the quality of the citizens. All the magnates of the city welcomed him home in civic procession. They broke down a part of the wall for him to enter: a city which could produce such citizens had no need of walls to defend it. For the rest of his life he ate at the public expense.”

C. L. R. James book Beyond a Boundary

Source: Beyond a Boundary (1963), p. 156

Life, Home, Communication, Victory

“That James could not accept automatically that these athletes were the greedy spawn of an exploitative system is the positive proof of his own liberation and oppression through sports. He was ennobled and crippled by cricket; he reached beyond his boundary but would always have a blind spot.”

C. L. R. James book Beyond a Boundary

Introduction by Robert Lipsyte (p. XX)
Beyond a Boundary (1963)

Sport

“He’s total team player - it’s not about him, and you can’t say enough about him as a person aside from his athletic abilities. But it’s the person in him, it’s the intangibles within him that make him the back that he is. There are other guys who are just as explosive and just as fast, but it’s the things inside of him that make him special.”

Javon Ringer (1987) All-American college football player, professional football player, running back

MSU head coach Mark Dantonio, quoted at Ringer 23.com (undated)

Making love, Guy, Personality

“The metaphysical explanation is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

David Foster Wallace, author in 2006 article in the New York Times titled Federer as Religious Experience http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=all

Law, Appearance, Parting

“We are witnessing history. This is the most dominant athlete on planet earth today.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Jim Courier, former world No.1, while commentating on Australia's Channel Seven in 2007 http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200701/25/eng20070125_344854.html

History

“Commerce, Opulence, Luxury, Effeminacy, Cowardice, Slavery: these are the stages of national degradation. We are in the fourth; and, I beg the reader to consider, to look into history, to trace states in their fall, and then say how rapid is the latter part of the progress! Of the symptoms of effeminacy none is so certain as a change from athletic and hardy sports, or exercises, to those requiring less bodily strength, and exposing the persons engaged in them to less bodily suffering; and when this change takes place, be assured that national cowardice is at no great distance, the general admiration of deeds of hardihood having already been considerably lessened.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Boxing’, Political Register (10 August 1805), p. 197
1800s

Exercises, History, Sport, Suffering

“I made a very historic decision. Every month, we will give cash to our athletes for their lifetime if they get medals in the Olympic games.”

Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (1963) Mongolian politician

Source: "Mongolian President Talks Corruption And Human Rights" in The Harvard Crimson https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/9/24/mongolian-president-institute-politics/ (24 September 2012)

Game, Decision

“I am a professional athlete and pressure is a part of every professional sport. It will be a dream come true for me if I could defeat the Chinese on my way to a medal, so if there’s pressure, there’s also incentive.”

Sania Nehwal (1990) Indian badminton player

"Saina Nehwal Interview: Sportskeeda Exclusive" https://www.sportskeeda.com/badminton/saina-nehwal-interview-sportskeeda-exclusive (19 April 2012)

Dreams, Way, Sport, Parting

“Our culture idolizes athletes, and God has really blessed my career. But at the end of the day, you want something that's eternal. We were made for so much more than fame or power, and coming to that realization has really made me say, "God, you know that’s best for me and that's what I want, too."”

Christina Wirth (1987) American basketball player

Friendship, Faith and Free Throws: Two professional basketball players to become full-time Catholic missionaries http://site.focus.org/news-for-you/february/friendship-faith-freethrows.html (2013)

God

“At the beginning, I thought I was an ordinary athlete, and I didn't think too much about it. But as people asked me for a lot of things, I also felt that I should pay attention to my words and deeds. No longer. Can't let my temper anymore.”

Zhang Yufei (1998) Chinese swimmer

"Forced to open! Zhang Yufei: At the beginning of the National Games, I only signed up for 6 items, but the coach secretly added 2 items" in 163.com https://www.163.com/dy/article/GK9TP0F60529ETIH.html (19 September 2021)

People, Thinking

This quote waiting for review.

“Robert Pistillo he Is an musician artist, creator digital, influencer actor and youtuber athlete, green eyes and 1.84 cm tall, he has long been a huge success in the world of social media, fashion and fitness. He managed to have over 1 million followers on Instagram alone to give an example. Ever since he was a teenager, he has had a strong passion for establishing himself and achieving success.”

Robert Pistillo

Source: Robert Pistillo he Is an musician artist, creator digital, influencer actor and youtuber athlete, green eyes and 1.84 cm tall, he has long been a huge success in the world of social media, fashion and fitness. He managed to have over 1 million followers on Instagram alone to give an example. Ever since he was a teenager, he has had a strong passion for establishing himself and achieving success.

World, Fashion, Strong, Passion

Quotes about athlete page 2

Quotes about athlete
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