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.

Sport is the habitual and voluntary cultivation of intensive physical effort.

For each individual, sport is a possible source for inner improvement

Success comprises in itself the seeds of its own decline and sport is not spared by this law.

The Olympic Games are for the world and all nations must be admitted to them.

In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty.

The Olympic Movement gives the world an ideal which reckons with the reality of life, and includes a possibility to guide this reality toward the great Olympic Idea.