All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.
Babe RuthRead
If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. I have the same violent temper my father and older brother had. Both died of injuries from street fights in Baltimore, fights begun by flare-ups of their tempers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Baseball provided Babe Ruth an outlet to avoid a life of violence and tragedy.
In this quote, Babe Ruth reflects on how baseball diverted him from a potentially destructive path characterized by violence and early death, as experienced by his father and brother. He acknowledges that his own temperament could have led him down the same dark road, suggesting that sports not only offered him a career but also saved his life by channeling his aggression into a positive pursuit.
Themes
BaseballTemperViolenceRedemptionLife Choices
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming adversity, this quote could emphasize the importance of finding positive outlets.
More from Babe Ruth
All quotes →Aw, everybody knows that game, the day I hit the homer off ole Charlie Root there in Wrigley Field, the day October first, the third game of that thirty-two World Series. But right now I want to settle all arguments. I didn't exactly point to any spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to, I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride... outta the park... anywhere.
Babe RuthRead
Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.
Babe RuthRead
Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.
Babe RuthRead
I only have one superstition: I make sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
Babe RuthRead
I'd give a year of my life if I could hit a homerun on opening day of this great new park.
Babe RuthRead
Similar quotes
I used to think...that I had to be careful with how much I lived. As if life was a pocketful of coins. You only got so much and you didn't want to spend it all in one place...But now I know that life is the one thing in the world that never runs out. I might run out of mine, and you might run out of yours, but the world will never run out of life. And we're all very lucky to be part of something like that.
Anthony DoerrRead
Bereavement is the deepest initiation into the mysteries of human life, an initiation more searching and profound than even happy love.
William Ralph IngeRead
That's not a thing any of us are granted. To go back. Wipe away what later doesn't suit us and make it the way we wish it. You just go on
Charles FrazierRead
Life plays the same lovely and agonizing joke on all of us.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear.
Joshua FoerRead
Growing up is difficult. Strangely, even when we have stopped growing physically, we seem to have to keep on growing emotionally, which involves both expansion and shrinkage, as some parts of us develop and others must be allowed to disappear...Rigidity never works; we end up being the wrong size for our world.
Jeanette WintersonRead