PIERRE DE COUBERTIN

The Olympic Games were created for the exhaltation of the individual athlete.

The important thing in life is not to triumph but to compete.

The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.

In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty.

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.

Olympism... exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, mind and will.

Swifter, higher, stronger.

A country can truly call itself sporting when the majority of its people feel a personal need for sport.

Sport is the habitual and voluntary cultivation of intensive physical effort.

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.

All sports must be treated on the basis of equality.

In no way can sport be considered a luxury object.

Racial distinctions should not play a role in sport.

The Olympic Games are for the world and all nations must be admitted to them.

Sport must be the heritage of all men and of all social classes.

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.

If he is knocked out of the competition, he encourages his brothers with his words and presence.

Sport is part of every man and woman's heritage and its absence can never be compensated for.

For me sport was a religion... with religious sentiment.

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.

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.

The Games were created for the glorification of the individual champion.

The important thing in life is not victory but combat; it is not to have vanquished but to have fought well.

For each individual, sport is a possible source for inner improvement.