42 Jackie Robinson Quotes

One must be without error out here. Walk in single file. Work quietly. Pack an extra number 2 pencil. Make no mistakes. But you are human and you will make mistakes. You will misjudge. You will yell. You will drink too much. You will hang out with people you shouldn't. Not all of us can always be Jackie Robinson - not even Jackie Robinson was always Jackie Robinson. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Are you looking for a Negro who won't fight back? ~ Jackie Robinson

Whether your name is (Lou) Gehrig or (Cal) Ripken, (Joe) DiMaggio or (Jackie) Robinson, or that of some youngster who picks up his bat or puts on his glove, you are challenged by the game of baseball to do your very best day in and day out. That's all I've ever tried to do. ~ Cal Ripken, Jr.

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free. ~ Jackie Robinson

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time. ~ Jackie Robinson

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. ~ Jackie Robinson

I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect. ~ Jackie Robinson

All though I didn't meet him. His legend and his saga and his story is just that. Jackie Robinson, we all have to tip our hat to him. Because he made the game available to guys like me. ~ Dave Winfield

He struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom and the American way of life. Jackie Robinson was a good citizen, a great man, and a true American champion. ~ Ronald Reagan

The catch off Bobby Morgan
(a backhanded grab of the Brooklyn Dodger's line drive in September 1951 at Ebbets Field) in Brooklyn was the best catch I ever made. Jackie Robinson
and (Giants manager) Leo Durocher
were the first people I saw when I opened my eyes ~ Willie Mays

When he (Richard Nixon) took the oath of office, he pledged to be the president for 100% of the people, and I challenge the president to prove that he is being the president for 100% of the people. ~ Jackie Robinson

Every year we discuss Jackie Robinson Day, which is April 15. We talk about it throughout baseball, promote it throughout baseball. ~ Curtis Granderson

I guess you'd call me an independent, since I've never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label. ~ Jackie Robinson

I've taken a lot of crap from a lot of people. Probably more than anybody in the history of this sport. I know Hank (Aaron) and Jackie (Robinson) took a good deal of crap, but I guarantee it wasn't for six years. I just keep thinking: How much am I supposed to take? ~ John Rocker

Once the record was mine, I had to use it like a Louisville Slugger. I believed, and still do, that there was a reason why I was chosen to break the record. I feel it's my task to carry on where Jackie Robinson left off, and I only know of one way to go about it. It's the only way I've ever had of dealing with things like fastballs and bigotry
keep swinging at them. ~ Hank Aaron

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it. ~ Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson, as an athlete and as someone who was trying to make a stand for equality, he was exemplary. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player would could have done what he (Jackie Robinson) did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour and he's got a split second to make up his mind if it's in or out or down or coming at his head, a split second to swing. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports. ~ Pee Wee Reese

I don't like needing anyone for anything. ~ Jackie Robinson

I am not concerned with being liked or disliked. I am concerned with being respected ~ Jackie Robinson

I cannot but feel that the one man, above all others, who deserves the eternal thanks of his own race, and all thinking people, for bringing about baseball's greatest reform, is Jackie Robinson himself ... Certainly baseball people should be eternally grateful for the contribution he made to his own people, and to the game. ~ Ford Frick

If I had to choose between baseball's Hall of Fame and first class citizenship for all of my people. I would say first-class citizenship. ~ Jackie Robinson

People look at black pride in America and sport's impact on it. In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling. ~ Jerry Izenberg

At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion when the National Anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else. ~ Jackie Robinson

I asked her who he was and she said, "He was a man ahead of his time." She actually liked Malcolm X. She put him in nearly the same category as her other civil rights heroes, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedys - any Kennedy. When Malcolm X talked about "the white devil" Mommy simply felt those references didn't apply to her. ~ James McBride

A life isn't significant except for its impact on other lives. ~ Jackie Robinson

It's not every day you get to be in a movie about Jackie Robinson, so you want to do it as right as you can. ~ Andre Holland

Above anything else, I hate to lose. ~ Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson is a true legend. ~ Sidney Poitier

Josh wanted to be the one to break the color barrier. When the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson he knew it was over for him. He wasn't going to make the big leagues, and he also knew that because of his health and his bad knees his career with the Grays was about over. He didn't know what to do with himself. They say a man can't die of a broken heart, and I guess that's true. But I'll tell you this, all of this sure lessened Josh's will to keep going, to keep fighting to stay alive. ~ Ted Page

I was being thrown to the wolves. Even though I did something great, nobody wanted to be a part of it. I was so isolated. I couldn't share it. For many years, even after Jackie Robinson, baseball was so segregated, really. You just didn't expect us to have a chance to do anything. Baseball was meant for the lily-white. ~ Hank Aaron

Baseball, like some other sports, poses as a sacred institution dedicated to the public good, but it is actually a big, selfish business with a ruthlessness that many big businesses would never think of displaying. ~ Jackie Robinson

After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that. ~ Reggie Jackson

He (Jackie Robinson) was the greatest competitor I've ever seen. I've seen him beat a team with his bat, his ball, his glove, his feet and, in a game in Chicago one time, with his mouth. ~ Duke Snider

Jackie Robinson stole home and he's safe."...Nobody could hurt him again. He wouldn't hear the name-calling. He would only hear the cheers and somehow I could fantasize my own little story about where he was and how he was doing and let him rest in peace. ~ Ken Burns

Jim Crow was king ... and I heard a game in which Jackie Robinson was playing, and I felt pride in being alive. ~ Lou Brock

As much as I loved Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Junior Gilliam, and Don Newcombe, I loved watching Willie Mays play more than all of them combined, even if he played for the 'bad guys!' ~ Cheech Marin

I know that I am a black man in a white world ... I know that I never had it made. ~ Jackie Robinson

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. ~ Jackie Robinson

All the courage and competitiveness of Jackie Robinson affects me to this day. If I patterned my life after anyone it was him, not because he was the first black baseball player in the majors but because he was a hero. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar