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She was unusual because even though I knew her family was as poor as ours, nothing she said or did seemed touched by that. Or by prejudice. Or by anything the world said or did. It was as if she had something inside her that somehow made all that not count.

— Jesse Owens Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)

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More quotes by Jesse Owens

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.

Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man (1970)

Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.

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.

It's like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.

Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)

To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten.

Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jesse Owens (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.