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

Arthur Ashe

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Arthur Ashe
Age: 49 †
Born: 1943
Born: July 10
Died: 1993
Died: February 6
Military Officer
Tennis Player
Richmond
Virginia
Arthur Robert Ashe
Jr.
Expressed
Bounds
Diversity
Potential
Identity
Sports
Race
Within
Ethnic

More quotes by Arthur Ashe

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Start where you are, use what you have.
Arthur Ashe
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There is a syndrome in sports called 'paralysis by analysis.'
Arthur Ashe
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I don't care who you are, you're going to choke in certain matches. You get to a point where your legs don't move and you can't take a deep breath. You start to hit the ball about a yard wide, instead of inches.
Arthur Ashe
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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
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A wise person decides slowly but abides by these decisions.
Arthur Ashe
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I have become convinced that we blacks spend too much time on the playing field and too little time in libraries.
Arthur Ashe
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In America you're conditioned to regard everything as a contest. You have to make the Ten Best Dressed List, win this, win that. It drives me nuts sometimes. Who cares, for Christ's sake?
Arthur Ashe
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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
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You really are never playing an opponent. You are playing yourself.
Arthur Ashe
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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.
Arthur Ashe
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Throughout my formal education I spent many, many hours in public and school libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were. The current definitive answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries.
Arthur Ashe
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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.
Arthur Ashe
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Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.
Arthur Ashe
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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.
Arthur Ashe
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Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis.
Arthur Ashe
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I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do.
Arthur Ashe
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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.
Arthur Ashe
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I take the good with the bad, and I try to face them both with as much calm and dignity as I can muster.
Arthur Ashe
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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.
Arthur Ashe
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The best way to judge a life is to ask yourself, Did I make the best use of the time I had?
Arthur Ashe