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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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Arthur Ashe
Age: 49 †
Born: 1943
Born: July 10
Died: 1993
Died: February 6
Military Officer
Tennis Player
Richmond
Virginia
Arthur Robert Ashe
Jr.
Guess
Early
Fun
Started
Sports
Thought
Something

More quotes by 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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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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Life is like a tennis game. You can't win without serving.
Arthur Ashe
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There is a terrific apprehension among some people that blacks will take over the sport... It will create problems because their behavior, speech and dress is just a completely different culture.
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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My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.
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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My humanity, in common with all of God's children, gives the greatest flight to my full range of my possibilities.
Arthur Ashe
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If one's reputation is a possession, then of all my possessions, my reputation means most to me.
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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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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A wise person decides slowly but abides by these decisions.
Arthur Ashe
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I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments. That's no contribution to society. [Tennis] was purely selfish that was for me.
Arthur Ashe
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You've got to make a lot of sacrifices and spend a lot of time if you really want to achieve with this sport, or in any sport, or in anything truly worthwhile.
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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I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments.
Arthur Ashe
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You really are never playing an opponent. You are playing yourself.
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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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