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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.
Diversity
Potential
Identity
Sports
Race
Within
Ethnic
Expressed
Bounds

More quotes by 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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This is my career highlight. Getting to the fourth round in the U.S. Open in my first year in the U.S. Open and first year on the tour.
Arthur Ashe
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Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.
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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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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Life is like a tennis game. You can't win without serving.
Arthur Ashe
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Start where you are, use what you have.
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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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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If you're paid before you walk on the court, what's the point in playing as if your life depended on it?
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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Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat.
Arthur Ashe
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You come to realize that life is short, and you have to step up. Don't feel sorry for me. Much is expected of those who are strong.
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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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
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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
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You really are never playing an opponent. You are playing yourself.
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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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
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Martina's like the old Green Bay Packers. You know exactly what she's going to do, but there isn't a thing you can do about it.
Arthur Ashe