"There were times when I asked myself whether……" — Arthur Ashe

"There were times when I asked myself whether I was being principled or simply a coward.... I was wrapped in the cocoon of tennis early in life, mainly by blacks like my most powerful mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson of Lynchburg, Virginia. They insisted that I be unfailingly polite on the court, unfalteringly calm and detached, so that whites could never accuse me of meanness. I learned well. I look at photographs of the skinny, frail, little black boy that I was in the early 1950s, and I see that I was my tennis racquet and my tennis racquet was me. It was my rod and my staff."

— Arthur Ashe

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64 Quotes by Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe has 64 quotes on this site. A few more worth reading:

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More Accuse Quotes

This quote is filed under Accuse Quotes, one of 211 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:

Very few species have survived unchanged. There's one called lingula, which is a little shellfish, a little brachiopod about the… — David Attenborough
You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology… — Hal Borland
Lots of women love to accuse men of being immature when the fellow in question displays a reluctance to 'commit.' — Julie Burchill
I hereby accuse the North American empire of being the biggest menace to our planet. — Hugo Chavez
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts. — Lord Chesterfield
You know no one will ever accuse me as having the same policies as George W. Bush. — Hillary Clinton
Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money. — Joseph Sobran
Sometimes, perhaps, thou hearest another pray with much freedom and fluency, whilst thou canst hardly get out a few broken… — William Gurnall
Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself. — Eric Clapton
To accuse another of having weak kidneys, lungs, or heart, is not a crime; on the contrary, saying he has… — Primo Levi
Accuse not nature: she hath done her part; Do thou but thine. — John Milton
You accuse a woman of wavering affections, but don't blame her; she is just looking for a consistent man. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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