All figures
Reference corpus author1913–198010 lines
Jesse Owens
The sprinter whose four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics answered a regime's ideology on its own track. He spent the rest of his life speaking about what those ten seconds meant.
Independently indexed citations from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1905) and Wikiquote — cited and licensed, not part of the curated verbatim registry.
“The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us.”
As quoted in People In America : "Jesse Owens" by Barbara Dash on VOA (7 June 2002)reference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler... You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Lutz…”
On the congratulations given by German athlete Lutz Long, a competitor in the long jump, who in some accounts he credited with giving him some friendly advice that helped him to win against him; as quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" by Larryreference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited…”
As quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" (2005), by Larry Schwartz, ESPN SportsCenturyreference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“Mr. Hitler had to leave the stadium early, but after winning I hurried up to the radio booth. When I passed near the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me and I waved back at him.”
Quoted in "Owens, Back, Gets Hearty Reception" by Louis Effrat, The New York Times, (August 25, 1936), p.25. Online for subscribers only.reference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.”
About Franklin D. Roosevelt, as quoted in Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics (2007), by Jeremy Schaap, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 211reference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“I'm old now. It's all right.”
In response to Armin Hary's comment, "You smoke? That's no good. No good!" at the 1960 Olympics in Rome; as quoted in Rome 1960 (2008) by David Maraniss.reference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“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.”
As quoted in Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man (1970)reference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big…”
Interview (1971); also quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" by Larry Schwartz in ESPN SportsCenturyreference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“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.”
I Have Changed (1972)reference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
“Joe Louis and I were the first modern national sports figures who were black... But neither of us could do national advertising because the South wouldn't buy it. That was the social stigma we lived under.”
The Tampa Tribune (April 1, 1980)reference only0.60
Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0Full provenance →
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