- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.Please feel free to browse and borrow.
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Quotations about sports
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.
John Wooden (1910-2010) American basketball player and coach
They Call Me Coach, ch. 25, epigraph (1972)
(Source)
Anybody who teaches a skill, which coaches do, is admirable. But sport doesn’t build character. Character is built pretty much by the time you’re six or seven. Sports reveals character. Sports heightens your perceptions. Let that be enough.
Heywood Hale Broun (1918-2001) American author, sportswriter, actor
In Ames Daily Tribune (16 Jan 1974)
Broun used a number of variations of this idea. It was more famously paraphrased in James Michener, Sports in America (1976), as "Sports do not build character. They reveal it." More discussion on this quote here.
Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.
Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960) American journalist and humorist
Nods and Becks (1944)
One of the things that I noticed in war was how difficult it was for our soldiers, at first, to realize that there are no rules to war. Our men were raised in sports, where a referee runs a football game, or an umpire a baseball game, and so forth.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Conference of the National Women’s Advisory Committee on Civil Defense (26 Oct 1954)
I am convinced that every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile.
Tom C. Clark (1899-1977) American lawyer, US Attorney General, US Supreme Court Justice (1949-1967)
(Attributed)
Speaking of recreational programs to reduce juvenile delinquency. Quoted in Reader's Digest, Vol. 60 (1952). Restated as "I still believe that any boy would rather steal second base than an automobile" in Washington World, Vol. 3 (1963).
There is no business like show business — except sports business.
William J Baker (contemp.) American historian, academic, writer
Sports in the Western World, ch. 19 (1982)
In America, it is sport that is the opiate of the masses.
Russell Baker (b. 1925) American journalist, author, humorist
“The Muscular Opiate,” New York Times (3 Oct 1967)
Catching a fly ball is a pleasure, but knowing what to do with it is a business.
Tommy Henrich (1913-2009) American baseball player [a/k/a "The Clutch" and "Old Reliable"]
In Peter Golenbock, Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964, “1949” (1975)
(Source)
Can you appreciate music without playing it? Of course you can, in the same way that people who are not athletes get enjoyment from attending a game to enjoy the crowd, the excitement, and the experience.
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) Lithuanian-American violinist
(Unsourced)
Quoted on his official web page.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Plato (c.428-347 BC) Greek philosopher
The Republic
