Arthur Ashe

You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing.

A wise person decides slowly but abides by these decisions.

When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you.

I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else.

It is not just the more talented player who wins. Some players may try a little harder.

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.

I have become convinced that we blacks spend too much time on the playing field and too little time in libraries.

Someone once told me that God figured that I was a pretty good juggler. I could keep a lot of balls in the air at one time. So He said, "Let's see if he can juggle another one."

If you're paid before you walk on the court, what's the point in playing as if your life depended on it?

I have always drawn strength from being close to home.

From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.

Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.

I have tried to keep on with my striving because this is the only hope I have of ever achieving anything worthwhile and lasting.

I strongly believe the black culture spends too much time, energy and effort raising, praising, and teasing our black children about the dubious glories of professional sports.

Drummed into me, above all, by my dad, by the whole family, was that without your good name, you would be nothing.

We blacks look for leadership in men and women of such youth and inexperience, as well as poverty of education and character, that it is no wonder that we sometimes seem rudderless.... We see basketball players and pop singers as possible role models, when nothing could be further, in most cases, from their capacities.

We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.

Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat.

You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.