Jesse Owens quotes

Jesse Owens was an American track and field athlete who gained international fame at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. His four gold medals challenged Nazi ideology and inspired millions around the world. He became a symbol of perseverance and triumph in the face of adversity. Here are 39 of his quotes:

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at. (Jesse Owens)
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. View quote
Jesse Owens
I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever. View quote
Jesse Owens
After I came home from the 1936 Olympics with my four medals, it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand or have me up to their suite. But no one was going to offer me a job. View quote
Jesse Owens
People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway. View quote
Jesse Owens
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. View quote
Jesse Owens
I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn't in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I'd learned long ago... the only victory that counts is the one over yourself. View quote
Jesse Owens
People who worked with me or knew me still called me the "world's fastest human" because I almost never stopped. I'd found that I could get more done with no regular job or regular hours at all, but by being on my own, flying to speak here, help with a public relations campaign for some client there, tape my regular jazz radio show one morning at 5:00 a. m. before leaving on a plane for another city or another continent three hours later to preside over a major sporting event. View quote
Jesse Owens
Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram. View quote
Jesse Owens
Joe Louis and I were the first modern national sports figures who were black... But neither of us could do national advertising because the South wouldn't buy it. That was the social stigma we lived under. View quote
Jesse Owens
We used to have a lot of fun. We never had any problems. We always ate. The fact that we didn't have steak? Who had steak? (Jesse Owens)
It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close. View quote
Jesse Owens
It's like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it. View quote
Jesse Owens
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. View quote
Jesse Owens
I'm old now. It's all right. View quote
Jesse Owens
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. View quote
Jesse Owens
The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers - weak, empty fingers. The only time the black fist has significance is when there's money inside. There's where the power lies. View quote
Jesse Owens
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. View quote
Jesse Owens
Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it. View quote
Jesse Owens
Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust. View quote
Jesse Owens
One chance is all you need. (Jesse Owens)
Another old friend gone! View quote
Jesse Owens
When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either. View quote
Jesse Owens
To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten. View quote
Jesse Owens
Mr. Hitler had to leave the stadium early, but after winning I hurried up to the radio booth. When I passed near the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me and I waved back at him. View quote
Jesse Owens