Quotes from Jesse Owens

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.

Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.

I always loved running.... It was something you could do by yourself and under your own power.

Only by God?s grace have I made it to see today and only by God?s grace will I ever see tomorrow.

Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it.

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.

For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.

A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

I always loved running... it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.

We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.

Although I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.

A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

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.

It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close

I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.

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.

He was constantly on me about the job that I was to do and the responsibility that I had upon the campus. And how I must be able to carry myself because people were looking.

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.

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?

People come out to see you perform and you've got to give them the best you have within you.

Life doesn't give you all the practice races you need.

I fought, I fought harder . . . but one cell at a time, panic crept into my body, taking me over.

For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.