Athletics Quotes

There's lots of people my age (and younger) that have grown up in chaotic environments and I just happen to be one of the first ones to make it to pro sports. It's more a societal thing than an athletics thing. ~ Chris Kluwe

The best martial artist doesn't win fights, but avoids fights. Martial arts is a way of gaining basic self-mastery of your mind, body and emotions. It can also be very useful in combat situations. ~ Frederick Lenz

And with alphabetical irony Nigeria follows New Zealand ~ David Coleman

If you have the sense of participation in sports or athletics, of being a player, then you are not really into the Zen mind. In Zen mind there is no sense of self in the play. ~ Frederick Lenz

If someone else runs faster than you or makes more money than you or is more adept at anything, that doesn't mean you have lost. You are measuring yourself only against yourself and your tendencies not to do all that you are capable of doing. ~ Frederick Lenz

The Olympic Games are highly commercialised. They purport to follow the traditions of an ancient athletics competition, but today it is the commercial aspect that is most apparent. I have seen how, through sport, cities and corporations compete against each other for financial gain. ~ Ai Weiwei

We want to promote the great qualities of athletics - and maintain its integrity - all over the world. ~ Alberto Juantorena

The most important thing I learned [from running] is that there is only one runner in this race, and that is me. ~ George A. Sheehan

The American's head are on their chins a little bit at the moment ~ Ron Pickering

Everyone has to try to give back as much as possible because I think in all sports it helps kids to have role models or people to look up to. Someone like Jess Ennis, I know a lot of young girls have started to get into athletics stuff because of her, because of her success. ~ Andy Murray

Allow the emptiness inherent within actions and experiences to guide and shape your choices. Let your actions direct you, the actor, not the other way around. ~ Frederick Lenz

I have a lot of friends who have hula-hoops, it's like a mixture of dance and athletics and exercise, meditation. It's a healthy hobby I think. I can do a few tricks, I can hoop from my neck and shoulders, and I can do a few moves, a few tricks! I can walk through the hoop whilst it's spinning. I feel like there's definitely an interest in promoting the hula-hoop as an important pastime! ~ Sufjan Stevens

Athletics lasts for such a short period of time. It ends for people. But while it lasts, it creates this make-believe world where normal rules don't apply. We build this false atmosphere. When it's over and the harsh reality sets in, that's the real joke we play on people ... Everybody wants to experience that superlative moment, and being an athlete can give you that. It's Camelot for them. But there's even life after it. ~ H. G. Bissinger

Studying music encourages self-discipline and diligence, traits that carry over into intellectual pursuits and that lead to effective study and work habits. An association of music and math has, in fact, long been noted. Creating and performing music promotes self-expression and provides self-gratification while giving pleasure to others. In medicine, increasing published reports demonstrate that music has a healing effect on patients. For all these reasons, it deserves strong support in our educational system, along with the other arts, the sciences, and athletics. ~ Michael E. DeBakey

In East Bangor, Pennsylvania (population 800), there's a little diner named for the trolley that used to take people to the once-bustling steel town of Bethlehem. The proprietors have adorned the walls with photographs of other local things that are no more. There's one of the East Bangor band, a group of about twenty men and boys, in uniform, in front of a bandstand draped with bunting. There's also one of the Kaysers, a local baseball club, on the day of an exhibition ballgame against the Philadelphia Athletics. These were Connie Mack's A's, which team in those early 1930s featured Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove. How did a village of under a thousand people manage to have its own band? How did a cluster of slate-belt villages field a regular baseball club, apparently good enough to stay on the same field for nine innings with the Philadelphia Athletics? What ~ Anthony M. Esolen

A big part of my life is music education because it changed my life - but arts, academics and athletics should all be equally treated in the school. ~ Flea

I joined the local athletics club when I was 12, that's what I did. I did it of my own volition. ~ Sebastian Coe

I started athletics in 1999, throwing discus and shot put. I didn't tell my family when I started boxing. ~ Mary Kom

Winning has to do with gaining personal power through the practice of meditation and mindfulness; not draining your energy on ridiculous things and people. ~ Frederick Lenz

Don't walk through life just playing football. Don't walk through life just being an athlete. Athletics will fade. Character and integrity and really making an impact on someone's life, that's the ultimate vision, that's the ultimate goal - bottom line. ~ Ray Lewis

It is a good idea to become involved with sports and athletics. It makes you strong. You need to be strong to deal with this world and the powers and forces that block enlightenment. ~ Frederick Lenz

Nothing good comes in life or athletics unless a lot of hard work has preceded the effort. Only temporary success is achieved by taking short cuts. ~ Roger Staubach

There's nothing wrong with athletics, but they shouldn't get in the way of your schoolwork. ~ Lemony Snicket

All success in sports and athletics, from the Zen point of view, comes from the mind. No matter what kind of shape your body is in, there is disharmony in the being. ~ Frederick Lenz

It has always been my thought that the most important single ingredient to success in athletics or life is discipline. I have many times felt that this word is the most ill-defined in all of our language. My definition isas follows: 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it it that way all the time. ~ Bobby Knight

One of the privileges of being an athlete is that on days when I have practice and games, I'm present whether I'm present or not. It's not fair, but that's the system. What can I do about it? ~ Erin O'Riordan

Greatness, whether athletic or otherwise, doesn't come from those content on just being but from those who seek being the difference. ~ Kirk Mango

Athletics is a great sport with many different events and athletes come in all shapes and sizes. I'm one of the smallest athletes on the track. They call me the 'pocket rocket'. ~ Jenny Meadows

While receiving radiation treatment for a thyroid illness, I had refused to take beta-blockers - a medication that would have eased its side effects - because they were deemed illegal by the sport's governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations. ~ Gail Devers

In my heart of hearts my motivation would always have been to be the best, and I think that athletics is probably what I was built for. ~ Daley Thompson

The problem, as Randolph has realized, is that the best way for a young person to build character is for him to attempt something where there is a real and serious possibility of failure. In a high-risk endeavor, whether it's in business or athletics or the arts, you are more likely to experience colossal defeat than in a low-risk one - but you're also more likely to achieve real and original success. "The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure," Randolph explained. ~ Paul Tough

I knew I could sing when I was about 7 years old. But since athletics was very much the forefront of my life, and I was kind of doing that a lot, I don't think anybody was caring or looking for me to be singing anything. So, yeah, I just kept it hidden from everyone. ~ Liv Warfield

On the £20,000 Mercedes prizes for each winner at the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart- Anyone good enough to win already has one. ~ Michael Johnson

When you're a dreamer, heart break and failure come with the territory, but I can tell you it's worth it, because it's a way of living that is both moving and memorable. ~ Lauren Fleshman

I can remember the day I decided I would retire from competitive athletics as vividly as if it were yesterday. ~ Sebastian Coe

Unlock the power of the will. Learn balance and gain the knowledge and wisdom necessary to guide those powers, to succeed in sports and athletics. ~ Frederick Lenz

I think that there's too much sugar in the world and not enough salt. Kids want to be challenged. Humans want to aspire to something. You don't win in life and you don't win in athletics with softness or selfishness. ~ Buzz Williams

The late start is due to the time. ~ David Coleman

Everybody deserves a shot at playing sports. It shouldn't matter in the least if that person is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Building community through healthy and inclusive activities should be one of the main focuses behind athletics, and that isn't possible if you exclude LGBT individuals, especially our youth. ~ Mardy Fish

In Zen we strive to bring both the mind and the body into perfect combination, so that there is no intrinsic difference between them. ~ Frederick Lenz

It's amazing how two thin pieces of clothing can hold such deep memories. Laughter, pain, victory, defeat, friendship, fatigue, elation ... they're all there, but only to the person who's worn the uniform ~ Wendelin Van Draanen

And the line up for the final of the women's 400 metres hurdles includes three Russians, two East Germans, a Pole, a Swede and a Frenchman ~ David Coleman

It wasn't popular for college athletics to embrace Title IX. ~ Grant Hill

College athletics are so entrenched and enjoyed by so many people that they will never be discontinued or substantially changed. I know that. I just pity the people caught in that tender trap. And most of all, I pity those kids. ~ Susan Orlean

Athletics and physical activity are important parts of youth development, in my experience and view. ~ Chris Gabrieli

Michigan State is always welcome at Ann Arbor. Your teams in all the various branches of athletics are more frequent visitors here than those of any other institution. This is as it should be, for not two universities are closer together in every way than Michigan State and Michigan. ~ Fielding H. Yost

Few would deny that blacks have become very dominant in athletics: football, basketball, track, now dominant in tennis and dominant in golf. ~ Jesse Jackson

I wouldn't say "art" as much as "virtue," in the ancient Greek sense of "andreia" – manly action – or "arete," excellence. In my experience, Resistance kicks in any time we try to move ourselves from a lower plane to a higher. In other words, when we try to align with the better parts of our nature. This move can be creative (art) or physical (athletics) or it can be ethical, moral or spiritual. Have you ever tried to meditate? I have and it kicks my butt every time. Spiritual stuff is hard! But so is making "cold calls" if you're opening a new business. Somehow the principle is the same. We're trying to overcome our natural laziness, selfishness, sloppiness, etc. So I wouldn't say "art," I'd say "virtue. ~ Steven Pressfield

My sons served excellent missions, and returned to participate in college athletics. In their letters home, and even now that they have been back for some time, they frequently mention that the experiences in the mission field were the choicest and most gratifying of their lives. You young men, begin to prepare yourselves now for this marvelous experience. ~ LaVell Edwards

Not a lot of people know me outside of athletics and believe it or not I am actually quite shy. The exhilaration of a win or tears after falling are the extremes. It takes me a while to get to know someone, but once I do I am very loyal to my old friends. ~ Sally Pearson

In athletics, older runners tend to go for longer races, but it's the opposite in swimming because your body can't handle the endurance. ~ Kirsty Coventry

The institutions of college athletics exist primarily as unreality fueled by deceit. The unreality is that universities should be in the business of providing large spectacles of mass entertainment. The fundamental absurdity of that notion requires the promulgation of the various deceits necessary to carry it out. ~ Charlie Pierce

Most people who do a lot of exercise, particularly in the form of competitive athletics, have unneurotic, extraverted, optimistic personalities to begin with. (Marathon runners are exceptions to this.) ~ Robert M. Sapolsky

Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe, Steve Cram - the vanguard of our cream ~ Ron Pickering

The glory of sport comes from dedication, determination and desire. Achieving success and personal glory in athletics has less to do with wins and losses than it does with learning how to prepare yourself so that at the end of the day, whether on the track or in the office, you know that there was nothing more you could have done to reach your ultimate goal. ~ Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Harold (about max): he looks kinda like a football couch
Chester (sarcastically): Yay team rah rah. if he says anything athletic i'll scream
max: want to jog?
(chester screams).
~ James Howe

You have to get into the water and learn against what seems to be the law gravity to float and dancing, or athletics takes you years before you develop a skill. But if you work at it, practicing daily, you can enable your body to do things that are utterly impossible to an untrained physic. ~ Karen Armstrong

He had won, easily. This was something else he could do, and do well, and his Dad had been there to witness his success. ~ Michael Braccia

Hurdling, sprinting, athletics in general, is always in the back of your mind. ~ Sally Pearson

I love the game. I love to watch. I watch it with my kids. I'm able to divorce the beauty of the athletics from the corporate entity that is the National Football League. ~ Peter Landesman

I go snowboarding and scuba diving to get to places of power where I can more correctly perceive the still center of my own mind. I also find that extreme athletics helps to clarify your mind. ~ Frederick Lenz

Athletics at the highest level is a sport within a sport. ~ Lindsey Vonn

The Americans sowed the seed, and now they have reaped the whirlwind ~ Sebastian Coe

Kids deserve arts, and it's just as important as science, math, history, English or athletics. ~ Flea

I've always been really comfortable around athletics, I've just never been comfortable playing anything. ~ Amy Adams

Athletics have an obvious advantage over the classics for the purpose of leisure-class learning, since success as an athlete presumes, not only a waste of time, but also a waste of money, as well as the possession of certain highly unindustrial archaic traits of character and temperament. ~ Thorstein Veblen

To me, we must learn to spell the word RESPECT. 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. ~ Jesse Owens

I think everybody ought to be allowed to be engaged in athletics at whatever level the audience will accept. ~ Gerald McRaney

Look, girls. It is important to all of us that we win this game, right? Well, when it comes to athletics, boys are simply better suited than girls. It's a fact of nature that no one can change. I'm sorry, but maybe you can play next time when it's less crucial. ~ Francine Pascal

In the current era, more than prodigies in mathematics, science, athletics, or art, I believe we need prodigies of good character and integrity. People who have polished their character and integrity until they shine are the ones who can be the real heroes the world needs to solve its problems. I think that, when people have the correct understanding of the meaning of human character, there will be a solution. ~ Ilchi Lee

Transform yourself. It is not the opponent that will change, or the Frisbee. They will change in relation to your change. You must change. ~ Frederick Lenz

Sports and athletics can be a path in Zen, in concordance with daily practice of zazen meditation. You need to move with your spirit, not just with your body. ~ Frederick Lenz

I grew up in athletics, where people keep score. ~ Phil McGraw

Mary Decker Slaney, the world greatest front runner, I shouldn't be surprised to see her at the front ~ Ron Pickering

The three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

In the West, we think of sports and athletics as individual achievement, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat; it all revolves around the ego. This has nothing to do with the Zen of sports and athletics. ~ Frederick Lenz

You can never give up-athletics taught me that. You must work hard, prepare, learn from your losses and continue to fight until the very end. ~ Roger Staubach

Someday find my son...tell him about how things can be between men on this Earth."
--A Letter to Jesse Owens ~ Luz Long

Most martial arts have to do with the mind, ultimately. The ability to be unafraid, to walk away from a fight without fear - that is control. ~ Frederick Lenz

The biggest concern with female athletes is they don't naturally compete. And so I think a part of what we do here exceptionally well that separates us from other programs is we train them to compete. So a huge challenge in women's athletics is to get them to compete against their teammates and friends in practice with the same intensity they compete with their bitter rivals. So that's a huge challenge for me, to get the women in practice to go after each other the way you would a rival ~ Anson Dorrance

I always said I wanted to be a great athlete, ever since I was an overweight little kid. I just love competing in any kind of athletics. ~ Herschel Walker

When I lost my decathlon world record I took it like a man. I only cried for ten hours. ~ Daley Thompson

So why am I an A's fan? Because, from 1901 to 1954, they were the Philadelphia Athletics. Philadelphia is my home town. The A's were the team I loved as a kid, and no gap of space or time can fray that bond. ~ Richard Corliss

In a budget, how important is art versus music versus athletics versus computer programming? At the end of the day, some of those trade-offs will be made politically. ~ Bill Gates

I can't compare family to athletics. ~ Joe Namath

If you look at anybody who's been marketed, it's been somebody who has been drop-dead hot and gorgeous,' Milbrett said. 'For men, you just have to be good. It doesn't matter what the hell you look like. For women, you have to be good and you have to be gorgeous. Maybe you're not even the best one on your team. Just as long as you look good, you're marketed. People's opinions are that this team is gorgeous. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the double standard in society and athletics. ~ Jere Longman

In terms of soccer, it wasn't really a thing that girls did. In England it more kind of Net Ball and Hockey and stuff like that in athletics. It's to each their own, really. ~ Parminder Nagra

Athletics brings out a side of you that is wonderful. It brings out so many good attributes like competing, intensity and playing at the highest level. ~ Julie Foudy

Athletics provided a life preserver for me, and that maybe kept me out of trouble. I never partied in high school. I mostly just dated. ~ Bill Fagerbakke

Cricket was a manly game. Manly masters spoke of the 'discipline of the hard ball'. Schools preferred manly games. Games were only manly if it was possible while playing them to be killed or drowned or at the very least badly maimed. Cricket could be splendidly dangerous. Tennis was not manly, and if a boy had asked permission to spend the afternoon playing croquet he would have been instantly punished for his 'general attitude'. Athletics were admitted into the charmed lethal circle as a boy could, with a little ingenuity, get impaled during the pole-vault or be decapitated by a discus and did a manly death. Fives were thought to be rather tame until one boy ran his head into a stone buttress and got concussion and another fainted dead away from heat and fatigue. Then everybody cheered up about fives. ~ Arthur Marshall

We've separated from mogul and aerial skiing and we've built our own sport and our own tricks. And now we're going back to the roots. But the Olympics is a world stage for athletics and it's going to be pretty sweet to represent our sport and represent our culture and show everyone what we're all about. ~ Nick Goepper

If you want to achieve something, you build the basis for it. ~ Noam Chomsky

I grew up in Mammoth Lakes, and they shot an episode up there, and I was hanging around when I was on the ski team. I was very, very involved in athletics, so I didn't watch a lot of TV, but I definitely watched a lot of '90210.' ~ Trevor Donovan

The study of motivation goes back to the Greeks. Their sports were essential to their education. They saw in sports the integration of body, mind and soul, the creation of beauty, the mastering of athletics, and the challenge of competition. A French sociologist points this out. "Sports," he wrote, was part of the education of the citizen. He was expected to engage in exercise for a whole series of reasons that had to do with the shaping of the citizen; the relation between moral good and physical good; and the growth of a person. ~ George A. Sheehan

If your intent is that athletics and sports are tools or devices to reach higher levels of mind, then your workout sessions become meditation. ~ Frederick Lenz

Most of us would give anything for the chance to play just one day of MLB baseball - especially for our favorite team. Well, there once was a pitcher named Bock Baker who actually got two opportunities to pitch in the big leagues. He took the mound for Cleveland against the Chicago White Sox in his big league debut. How did he fare? Well, he pitched a complete game. Pretty spectacular, right? Well, sure - but it depends on your perspective. He gave up 23 hits and 13 runs. Baker never pitched for Cleveland again, but the Philadelphia Athletics gave him a second big league start that same year (1901). He lasted juts six innings, and lost again after giving up 11 runs - and then his career was over. ~ Tucker Elliot

The waves get high, they get low. It's been a wonderful journey, every bit of it, and that's from every praise to every criticism ... To be able to able to hang around athletics for a lifetime and to meet all these wonderful people I've come in contact with, to have been around as many big events as I have, I can't imagine a day when I did not have something to make me happy about sports. ~ Brent Musburger

Swimming and athletics are the big gigs at the Olympic games. Cycling and rowing are pretty big for Britain, but globally, the two big things are athletics and swimming. ~ Clare Balding

I've always thought that my exposure to competitive sports helped me a great deal in the operating room. It teaches you endurance, and it teaches you how to cope with defeat, and with complications of all sort. I think I'm a well-coordinated person, more than average, and I think that came through my interest in sports, and athletics ... Playing basketball You have to make decisions promptly, and that's true in the operating room as well. ~ Denton Cooley

I'm not sure who invented dodgeball, but I can almost guarantee you that it wasn't the shortest kid in the class. ~ John Bingham