Arthur Ashe Quotations

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

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

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

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.

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

I don't care who you are, you're going to choke in certain matches. You get to a point where your legs don't move and you can't take a deep breath. You start to hit the ball about a yard wide, instead of inches.

I accepted the face that as much as I want to lead others, and love to be around other people, in some essential way, I am something of a loner.

I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.

If I were to say, 'God, why me?' about the bad things, then I should have said, 'God, why me?' about the good things that happened in my life.

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

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

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

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.

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

Do not feel sorry for me if I am gone.

We must believe in the power of education. We must respect just laws. We must love ourselves, our old and or young, our women as well as our men.

My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.

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

The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight.

A wise person decides slowly but abides by these decisions.

Let me put it this way: I think Republicans tend to keep the ball in play, Democrats go for broke.

I have always drawn strength from being close to home.

I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments.

I may not be walking with you all the way, or even much of the way, as I walk with you now.

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

When bright young minds can't afford college, America pays the price.

There is a syndrome in sports called 'paralysis by analysis.'

Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis.

I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do.

I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems. Rather, the answer is a revival of our ancient commitment to God, who rules over all the peoples of the world and exalts no one over any other, and to the moral and spiritual values which were once legendary in America. We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.

I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there.

A couple of times a day I sit quietly and visualize my body fighting the AIDS virus. It's the same as me sitting and seeing myself hit the perfect serve. I did that often when I was an athlete.

I'm learning to use others' weaknesses. I don't hammer a man's soft spot constantly, because he may strengthen it. I just save it as a trump up my sleeve for moments when I really need a point.

Seven out of 10 black faces you see on television are athletes. The black athlete carries the image of the black community. He carries the cross, in a way, until blacks make inroads in other dimensions.

I take the good with the bad, and I try to face them both with as much calm and dignity as I can muster.

In America you're conditioned to regard everything as a contest. You have to make the Ten Best Dressed List, win this, win that. It drives me nuts sometimes. Who cares, for Christ's sake?

If I didn't play tennis I probably would have to see a psychiatrist.

There's no better stage than the U.S. Open for me

Some folks call tennis a rich people's sport or a white person's game. I guess I started too early because I just thought it was something fun to do. Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis. You've got to make a lot of sacrifices and spend a lot of time if you really want to achieve with this sport, or in any sport, or in anything truly worthwhile.

You come to realize that life is short, and you have to step up. Don't feel sorry for me. Much is expected of those who are strong.

This is my career highlight. Getting to the fourth round in the U.S. Open in my first year in the U.S. Open and first year on the tour.

Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it's like to be stepped on, I know what it's like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.

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

If I don't ask "Why me?" after my victories, I cannot ask "Why me?" after my setbacks and disasters.

Clothes and manners do not make the...

Throughout my formal education I spent many, many hours in public and school libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were. The current definitive answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries.

It's an abnormal world I live in. I don't belong anywhere. It's like I'm floating down the middle. I'm never quite sure where I am.

Wherever I am when you feel sick at heart and weary of life, or when you stumble and fall and don’t know if you can get up again, think of me. I will be watching and smiling and cheering on.

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

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."

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

Martina's like the old Green Bay Packers. You know exactly what she's going to do, but there isn't a thing you can do about it.

There is a terrific apprehension among some people that blacks will take over the sport... It will create problems because their behavior, speech and dress is just a completely different culture.

If one's reputation is a possession, then of all my possessions, my reputation means most to me.

...I spent many, many hours in...libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were.

Sometimes, a defeat can be more beautiful and satisfying than certain victories. The English have a point in insisting that it matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game.

My humanity, in common with all of God's children, gives the greatest flight to my full range of my possibilities.

I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments. That's no contribution to society. [Tennis] was purely selfish; that was for me.

I know I could never forgive myself if I elected to live without humane purpose, without trying to help the poor and unfortunate, without recognizing that perhaps the purest joy in life comes with trying to help others.

You've got to make a lot of sacrifices and spend a lot of time if you really want to achieve with this sport, or in any sport, or in anything truly worthwhile.

With what we give, we make a life.

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.

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.

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.

You really are never playing an opponent. You are playing yourself.

Every time you win, it diminishes the fear a little bit. You never really cancel the fear of losing; you keep challenging it.

Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.

It doesn't have to glitter to be gold.

The best way to judge a life is to ask yourself, "Did I make the best use of the time I had?

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

The world over - 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD 'Why me?'. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD 'Why me?'

There were times when I asked myself whether I was being principled or simply a coward.... I was wrapped in the cocoon of tennis early in life, mainly by blacks like my most powerful mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson of Lynchburg, Virginia. They insisted that I be unfailingly polite on the court, unfalteringly calm and detached, so that whites could never accuse me of meanness. I learned well. I look at photographs of the skinny, frail, little black boy that I was in the early 1950s, and I see that I was my tennis racquet and my tennis racquet was me. It was my rod and my staff.

Life is like a tennis game. You can't win without serving.

Fear isn't an excuse to come to a standstill. It's the impetus to step up and strike.

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

Start where you are, use what you have.

What it is controlled cool, in a way. Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat.

Arthur Ashe Jr. is a true Virginia hero, and he belongs here,

It's an amazing feeling to have, I find it very hard to believe,

I'm very happy for him. . . . He was heartbroken here once, ... But that's all over now. I told him he had to face these things in life . . . to make a man of himself.

I'm waiting for the alarm clock to go off and I'm going to wake up, ... I can't believe how well things are going. This is a dream come true.

Clothes and manners do not make the man, but where he is made they greatly improve his appearance.