Sports quotes
8.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside sports — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man."
"If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead."
"As athletes, we're used to reacting quickly. Here, it's 'come, stop, come, stop.' There's a lot of downtime. That's the toughest part of the day."
"When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity."
"They are who we thought they were!"
"Will I have to explain to my daughter that her brother is gonna make more money doing the exact same job because he's a man? If they both played sports since they were three years old, they both worked just as hard, but because he's a boy, they're gonna give him more money? Like, how am I gonna explain that to her? In tennis we've had great pioneers that paved the way - including Venus [Williams], who fought so hard for Wimbledon to pay women the same prize money they pay men, and Billie Jean King, who is one of the main reasons Title IX exists."
"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."
"Every great player has learned the two Cs: how to concentrate and how to maintain composure."
"Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best."
"Natural talent only determines the limits of your athletic potential. It's dedication and a willingness to discipline your life that makes you great."
"I swear it upon Zeus an outstanding runner cannot be the equal of an average wrestler."
"What to do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it."
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."
"Never play leapfrog with a unicorn."
"The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before."
"If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?"
"Coming from a small town it was tough to dream big. When I grew up in a small town in Georgia, my biggest dream was one day to be able to go to Atlanta."
"It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling."
"It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt"
"I don't play any tournaments to come second best."
