Top 50 Arthur Ashe Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Start where you are, use what you have.”

— Arthur Ashe

Featured in: Athlete Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Taking Action Quotes, Quotes About Trying, Different Quotes

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

— Arthur Ashe

Featured in: Meaning Quotes, Fulfillment Quotes, Kindness Quotes, Quotes About Giving, Teaching Quotes

3. “Life is like a tennis game. You can’t win without serving.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

Featured in: Winning Quotes

5. “If I don’t ask “Why me?” after my victories, I cannot ask “Why me?” after my setbacks and disasters.”

— Arthur Ashe

6. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

8. “Fear isn’t an excuse to come to a standstill. It’s the impetus to step up and strike.”

— Arthur Ashe

9. “Do not feel sorry for me if I am gone.”

— Arthur Ashe

10. “It doesn’t have to glitter to be gold.”

— Arthur Ashe

11. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

12. “You really are never playing an opponent. You are playing yourself.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

15. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

17. “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.””

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

Featured in: Fun Quotes

19. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

20. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

21. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

Featured in: Strong Quotes

22. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

24. “If one’s reputation is a possession, then of all my possessions, my reputation means most to me.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

28. “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?”

— Arthur Ashe

29. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

31. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

32. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

33. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

35. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

39. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

42. “With what we give, we make a life.”

— Arthur Ashe

43. “If I didn’t play tennis I probably would have to see a psychiatrist.”

— Arthur Ashe

44. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

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

— Arthur Ashe

47. “Clothes and manners do not make the...”

— Arthur Ashe

48. “Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you’re behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.”

— Arthur Ashe

49. “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.”

— Arthur Ashe

50. “Believe me, most people resist change, even when it promises to be for the better. But change will come, and if you acknowledge this simple but indisputable fact of life, and understand that you must adjust to all change, then you will have a head start.”

— Arthur Ashe