In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty.
Pierre De CoubertinRead
In our view the Olympic idea involves a strong physical culture supplemented on the one hand by mobility, what is so aptly called 'fair play', and on the other hand by aesthetics, that is the cultivation of what is beautiful and graceful.
Interpretation
The Olympic idea promotes a balance between physical excellence, fair play, and appreciation of beauty.
Pierre De Coubertin emphasizes that the essence of the Olympic spirit lies not just in physical prowess but in the values of fair play and the beauty of athletic performance. This holistic view seeks to combine strength, integrity, and aesthetics in sports, encouraging a well-rounded appreciation for athletic achievement.
In practice
This quote could be shared during an Olympic-themed event or discussion about sportsmanship.
In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty.
Success comprises in itself the seeds of its own decline and sport is not spared by this law.
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.
The day when a sportsman stops thinking above all else of the happiness in his own effort and the intoxication of the power and physical balance he derives from it, the day when he lets considerations of vanity or interest take over, on this day his ideal will die.
May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic Torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.
I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.
It is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the intellectual that he judges new ideas not by their specific merits but by the readiness with which they fit into his general conceptions, into the picture of the world which he regards as modern or advanced.
Words, in their distant past, have the past of my reveries.
He is a true fugitive who flies from reason.
In April 1917 the illusion of isolation was destroyed, America came to the end of innocence, and of the exuberant freedom of bachelor independence. That the responsibilities of world power have not made us happier is no surprise. To help ourselves manage them, we have replaced the illusion of isolation with a new illusion of omnipotence.
In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.
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