James Connolly Quotes

I like fighting clean. I've always fought clean, and I want to fight clean people. I want to fight fair.

I may have been fierce, but never low or underhand.

I will not steal a victory.

Do not completely defeat your opponents. Leave your opponents some dignity with which to walk off the field. They have been elected by some people and you have no right to dismember them… When you do that, you lose all semblance of leadership.

I don't want to talk trash about somebody: I want to prove it inside the cage.

If you are not honorable enough to fight without prejudice, go home.

A woman of honor should never suspect another of things she would not do herself.

I fight fairly, and in good faith.

I don't like cheap shots, I really don't.

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

Prize-Fighting is not the aim of boxing. This noble exercise ought not to be judged by the dishonesty or the low lives of too many of its professional followers. Let it stand alone, an athletic practice, on the same footing as boating or football.

Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.

Smears are not only to be expected but fought. Honor is to be earned, not bought.

My kids have played sports all their life, and one thing I've tried to teach them when you lose, you try to be a gentleman about it.

They will look at my career as the guy who gave it all but at the same time did it with integrity. That's what we all aim for - the respect of the game as well as the honesty that's played a part of that game.

It's impossible to speak what it is not noble to do.

One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.

I have the same malice in my heart as far as the fight game is concerned, but outside the ring, I won't say anything a dignified man won't say.

This ultimate fighting stuff is something I don't agree with. Once a man is down, you have to let him have a chance to prove how good he is.

The integrity of the game is everything.

I think it's safe to say that 'manliness' was a common theme in my upbringing. It was an assumed status, but - and here's the important bit - it was the Rudyard Kipling kind. The emphasis was on gentlemanly conduct, sportsmanship, fairness and stoicism.

All the screen cowboys behaved like real gentlemen. They didn't drink, they didn't smoke. When they knocked the bad guy down, they always stood with their fists up, waiting for the heavy to get back on his feet. I decided I was going to drag the bad guy to his feet and keep hitting him.

I beg my Children to be just and virtuous, never to disgrace my name or theirs, and then they are out of fortune's power.

Of all forms of prestige, moral prestige is the most valuable, and no statesman should forget that one of the chief elements of British power is the moral weight that is behind it.

Never descend to the ways of those above you.