JACKIE ROBINSON

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

How you played in yesterday's game is all that counts.

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.

I guess you'd call me an independent, since I've never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first.

This ain't fun. But you watch me, I'll get it done.

An individual life is not important except as it affects other lives.

I now believe I know how it felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

The colonel replied that he didn't care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

In my opinion, baseball is as big a business as anything there is. It has to be a business, the way it is conducted.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality - we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens.

When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don't take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn't know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don't talk about baseball at home.

The old Dodgers were something special, but of my teammates overall, there was nobody like Pee Wee Reese for me.

If I had been white with the things I did, they never would have allowed me to get out of baseball.

I cannot possibly believe that I have it made while so many black brothers and sisters are hungry, inadequately housed, insufficiently clothed, denied their dignity as they live in slums or barely exist on welfare.

I have always been grateful to Colonel Longley. He proved to me that when people in authority take a stand, good can come out of it.