My favorite ‘Quotable Quotes’

I love reading quotations. They’re quick, at times funny, and always mind-provoking. Take what Muhammad Ali once said: “I’m so fast I could hit you before God gets the news.”

My favorite? “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot… and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why…. I succeed.”

Who said that? (Clue: Read on… he also said No. 17.)

1. “My doctor told me jogging could add years to my life, I told him ‘Yeah, since I began, I already feel 10 years older!’” – golfer Lee Trevino
2. “The man who will whip me will be fast, strong and hasn’t been born yet.” – Muhammad Ali
3. “Golf is the only game where the worst player gets the best of it. He obtains more out of it as regards both exercise and enjoyment, for the good player gets worried over the slightest mistake, whereas the poor player makes too many mistakes to worry over them.” – David Lloyd George
4. “Brazilian football is not only a sport. It’s a kind of stage play, a theatrical movement.” – Muniz Sodre
5. “When I was 40 my doctor advised me that a man in his forties shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again.” – Hugo L. Black
6. “A sport where the players actually enjoy getting hit in the head by a ball.” – soccer advertisement
7. “The World Cup is every four years so it’s going to be a perennial problem.” – English player Gary Lineker
8. “To be No. 1, you must train like you are No. 2.” – sprinter Maurice Greene
9. “Sport is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending.” – US playwright Neil Simon
10. “I consider exercise vulgar. It makes people smell.” – writer Alec Thornton
11. “Golf is a game that is played on a five-inch course: the distance between your ears.” – golfer Bobby Jones
12. “Chess. For a game it is too serious, for seriousness too much of a game.” – German philosopher Moses Mendelsson
13. “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, age doesn’t matter.” – baseball manager Casey Stengel
14. “They don’t give you gold medals for beating somebody. They give you gold medals for beating everybody.” – Michael Johnson
15. “In the end, it’s extra effort that separates a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more than that, too. It starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don’t win, how can you lose?” – Jesse Owens
16. “Life’s too short for chess.” – British actor Henry James Byron
17. “I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come. I don’t do things half-heartedly. Because I know if I do, then I can expect half-hearted results.” – Michael Jordan

18. “Brazil’s football is like their inflation: 100 per cent.” – Jornal da Tarde
19. “Pain means progress.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
20. “Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. The relationship between the soundness of the body and the activities of the mind is subtle and complex. Much is not yet understood. But we do know what the Greeks knew: that intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong; that hardy spirits and tough minds usually inhabit sound gods.” – US president John F. Kennedy
21. “Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.” – Vladimir Llyich Lenin
22. “Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes.” – US educator Robert Hutchins