In our view the Olympic idea involves a strong physical culture supplemented on the one hand by mobility, what is so aptly called 'fair play', and on the other hand by aesthetics, that is the cultivation of what is beautiful and graceful.
— Pierre de Coubertin
The Olympic Games were created for the exhaltation of the individual athlete.
Holding an Olympic Games means evoking history.
All sports must be treated on the basis of equality.
If he is knocked out of the competition, he encourages his brothers with his words and presence.
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.
Racial distinctions should not play a role in sport.
Sport must be accessible to working class youth.
The important thing in life is not to triumph but to compete.
The Olympic Movement gives the world an ideal which reckons with the reality of life, and includes a possibility to guide this reality toward the great Olympic Idea.
Swifter, higher, stronger.
Success comprises in itself the seeds of its own decline and sport is not spared by this law.
A country can truly call itself sporting when the majority of its people feel a personal need for sport.
In no way can sport be considered a luxury object.
For each individual, sport is a possible source for inner improvement.
The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.
Sport is part of every man and woman's heritage and its absence can never be compensated for.
Sport must be the heritage of all men and of all social classes.
The important thing in life is not victory but combat; it is not to have vanquished but to have fought well.
The day when a sportsman stops thinking above all else of the happiness in his own effort and the intoxication of the power and physical balance he derives from it, the day when he lets considerations of vanity or interest take over, on this day his ideal will die.
In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty.
Olympism... exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, mind and will.
All sports for all people.
May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic Torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.
For me sport was a religion... with religious sentiment.
The Olympic Spirit is neither the property of one race nor of one age.
Sport is the habitual and voluntary cultivation of intensive physical effort.
The Games were created for the glorification of the individual champion.
The Olympic Games are for the world and all nations must be admitted to them.
Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.
