Arthur Ashe Quotes

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

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

I have always drawn strength from being close to home.

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."

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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