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It was bad enough to have toppled from the Olympic heights to make my living competing with animals. But the competition wasn't even fair. No man could beat a race horse, not even for 100 yards.

Jesse Owens

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Jesse Owens
Age: 66 †
Born: 1913
Born: September 12
Died: 1980
Died: March 31
Athletics Competitor
Olympic Athlete
Sprinter
Oakville
Albama
James Cleveland Owens
James Cleveland Jesse Owens
Men
Wasn
Athlete
Sports
Beat
Animal
Fairs
Toppled
Race
Fair
Olympic
Living
Beats
Heights
Enough
Competition
Yards
Even
Animals
Competing
Make
Horse
Height

More quotes by Jesse Owens

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A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
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If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard.
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Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it.
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When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country, and I could not ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. Now what's the difference?
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One chance is all you need.
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I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn't a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward.
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Life doesn't give you all the practice races you need.
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I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.
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It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere - one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.
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The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us.
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The secret is, first, get a thoroughbred horse because they are the most nervous animals on earth. Then get the biggest gun you can find and make sure the starter fires that big gun right by the nervous thoroughbred's ear.
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Every morning, just like in Alabama, I got up with the sun, ate my breakfast even before my mother and sisters and brothers, and went to school, winter, spring, and fall alike to run and jump and bend my body this way and that for Mr. Charles Riley.
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We must respect the rights and properties of our fellowman. And then learn to play the game of life, as well as the game of athletics, according to the rules of society. If you can take that and put it into practice in the community in which you live, then, to me you have won the greatest championship.
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When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.
Jesse Owens
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I always loved running.... It was something you could do by yourself and under your own power.
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The only victory that counts is the one over yourself.
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We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.
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Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.
Jesse Owens
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I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.
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If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.
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