Olympic Games Quotes

“Why is luge a sport? You dress up like a giant sperm and go sledding really fast. That’s hardly athletic. Phallic and sexy, yes. But hardly athletic.”
― Jessica Park, Flat-Out Love

“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”
― Pierre de Coubertin

“The important thing in life is not victory but combat; it is not to have vanquished but to have fought well.”
― Pierre de Coubertin

“When anyone tells me I can't do anything, I'm just not listening any more.”
― Florence Griffith Joyner

“The first is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours.”
― Peggy Fleming

“It is the inspiration of the Olympic Games that drives people not only to compete but to improve, and to bring lasting spiritual and moral benefits to the athlete and inspiration to those lucky enough to witness the athletic dedication.”
― Herb Elliott

“Arguing is the Olympics of talking”
― Stewart Stafford

“The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.”
― Dawn Fraser

“For athletes, the Olympics are the ultimate test of their worth.”
― Mary Lou Retton

“There can be distractions, but if you're isolated from the heart of the Games, the Olympics become just another competition.”
― Mary Lou Retton

“The Olympic Games is a celebration of discipline.”
― Sunday Adelaja

“It hurts my heart that doing what I love has been kind of taken away from me to please other people. I wanted it to be for myself. But I was still doing it for other people”
― Simone Biles

“It was not the money that was my main motive; it was the challenge and the thrill where I got my kicks. Armed robbery to me was like a sport. To take on an armored vehicle with two armed security guards—it was like an athlete attending the Olympic Games.”
― Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father

“In the Olympic Games it is neither important to win nor important to have taken part. Sport is just something people who feel like doing it do, up to the point where the effort involved becomes inhuman. Beyond that point, politics takes over. Politically, the Olympic Games are a farce on every level. It is grotesque that in 1976 the BBC commentators should still be sounding like old Pathé Pictorials, desperately cherishing an illusion of British influence which would be fatuous even if it were real.”
― Clive James, Visions Before Midnight

“I think we all realized that making the Olympic team could be harder than winning team gold at the Games itself.”
― Aly Raisman, Fierce: How Competing for Myself Changed Everything

“The art of true sportsmanship is not only shaped by winning, but by being able to embrace defeat, respect and participating with integrity.”
― Wayne Chirisa