Top 80 Jackie Robinson Quotes On Life, Equality And Success

Looking for famous inspirational quotes by Jackie Robinson? We have rounded up the best collection of Jackie Robinson quotes, sayings, captions, (with images, pictures and wallpapers, and posters), to inspire you to achieve success in life through hard work, courage, perseverance, and determination.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was an African American professional baseball player to play in Major League Baseball (MLB), ending the period of racial segregation and discrimination in baseball.

Robinson broke the baseball color line at the Brooklyn Dodgers base in 1947.

He was the first black to enter the Hall of Fame in 1962. With the remarkable contributions he made to the baseball diamond, his words had a major impact.

Shortly before his death in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Jackie Robinson made my success possible. Without him, I would never have been able to do what I did.”

Also See: Derek Jeter Quotes

Here are a few of my favorite Jackie Robinson quotes, and may these Jackie Robinson Quotes On life, success, perseverance, equality, racism, civil rights help you regain faith in yourself.

Top 10 Jackie Robinson Quotes

1. “God built me to last.”– Jackie Robinson

   
2. “Life is not a spectator sport.”

   

3. “There’s nothing like faith in God.”

   

4. “Don’t complain. Just work harder.”– Jackie Robinson 

   

5. “Above anything else, I hate to lose.”– Jackie Robinson
6. “You’re going to be a great player, kid.”– Jackie Robinson
7. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, I’m right here!”– Jackie Robinson
8. “I don’t like needing anyone for anything.”– Jackie Robinson                                                                                                                 

9. 

10. “I ought to break this trophy into 32 pieces.” – Jackie Robinson
11. “I’d get mad. But I’d never let them know it.” – Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson Famous Quotes

1. “This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.”

   

2. “But you can get those at any ballpark at any time.”– Jackie Robinson
3. “Are you looking for a Negro who won’t fight back?”– Jackie Robinson
4. “I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.”– Jackie Robinson
5. “I don’t think it matters what I believe, only what I do.”

   

6. “How you played in yesterday’s game is all that counts.”

   

7. “It’s not easy to be a martyr in the field of race relations.”

   

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

   

9. “I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.”

   

10. “Discover the truth of today; and perhaps the greatness of tomorrow.”– Jackie Robinson

Best Quotes By Jackie Robinson

1. “Maybe one day we’ll all wear 42 and they won’t be able to tell us apart.”

   

2. “There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.”– Jackie Robinson
3. “I know that I am a black man in a white world. . . I know that I never had it made.”

   

4. “I am not concerned with being liked or disliked. I am concerned with being respected.”– Jackie Robinson
5. “In all my years of baseball, I have always expected to be traded. I never liked the idea.”– Jackie Robinson
6. “I don’t owe any living person my soul, my integrity, my freedom of thought and speech.”– Jackie Robinson
7. “The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.”

   

8. “We’re in a real crisis situation where many times people are being turned away at the door.”– Jackie Robinson
9. “We have a social responsibility and we are held to a higher standard than other institutions.”– Jackie Robinson
10. “During my life, I have had a few nightmares which happened to me while I was wide awake.”– Jackie Robinson

Inspirational Jackie Robinson Quotes

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

   

2. “Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.”
3. “If I had been white with the things I did, they never would have allowed me to get out of baseball.”
4. “Relationships may change throughout the gift of time, memories stay the same forever in my mind.”

   

5. “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”
6. “Medgar Evers America needs and the world cannot afford to lose him to the whims of murderous maniacs.”
7. “I cannot stand and sing the Anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.”

   

8. “No matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.”
9. “I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party.”
10. “Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.”
11. “The old Dodgers were something special, but of my teammates overall, there was nobody like Pee Wee Reese for me.”
12. “I won’t have it made until the most underprivileged in Mississippi can live in equal dignity with anyone else in America.”
13. “In my opinion, baseball is as big a business as anything there is. It has to be a business, the way it is conducted.”
14. “It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.”
15. “After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.”
16. “Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.”
17. “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.”
18. “If I had to choose between baseball’s Hall of Fame and first class citizenship for all my people. I would say first-class citizenship.”
19. “But as I write these words now I cannot stand and sing the National Anthem. I have learned that I remain a black in a white world.”
20. “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.”

Jackie Robinson Quotes

1. “I think it was one of the greatest times ever in the world to play baseball. Television was in its infancy. Breaking the color barrier,” – Jackie Robinson
2. “I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”– Jackie Robinson
3. “A professional athlete is victorious when he/she use their celebrity/hero status in a compassionate and charitable manner to lift up humanity.”– Jackie Robinson
4. “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.”– Jackie Robinson
5. “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.”– Jackie Robinson
6. “Believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that society can remain good as long as we are willing to fight for it – and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist.”– Jackie Robinson
7. “Plenty of times I wanted to haul off when somebody insulted me for the color of my skin, but I had to hold to myself. I knew I was kind of an experiment. The whole thing was bigger than me.”
8. “I’m grateful for all the breaks and honors and opportunities I’ve had, but I always believe I won’t have it made until the humblest black kid in the most remote backwoods of America has it made.”
9. “The black press, some liberal sportswriters, and even a few politicians were banging away at those Jim Crow barriers in baseball. I never expected the walls to come tumbling down in my lifetime.”
10. “When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go.”
11. “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.”
12. “The many of us who attain what we may and forget those who help us along the line we’ve got to remember that there are so many others to pull along the way. The farther they go, the further we all go.”
13. “At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion when the National Anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else.”
14. “My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.”
15. “Baseball, like some other sports, poses as a sacred institution dedicated to the public good, but it is actually a big, selfish business with a ruthlessness that many big businesses would never think of displaying.”
16. “Blacks have had to learn to protect themselves by being cynical but not cynical enough to slam the door on potential opportunities. We go through life walking a tightrope to prevent too much disillusionment.”
17. “But if Mr. Rickey hadn’t signed me, I wouldn’t have played another year in the black league. It was too difficult. The travel was brutal. Financially, there was no reward. It took everything you make to live off.”
18. “Next time I go to a movie and see a picture of a little ordinary girl become a great star… I’ll believe it. And whenever I hear my wife read fairy tales to my little boy, I’ll listen. I know now that dreams do come true.”
19. “I had to fight hard against loneliness, abuse, and the knowledge that any mistakes I made would be magnified because I was the only black man out there… I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.”
20. “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.”
21. “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.”
22. “Negroes aren’t seeking anything which is not good for the nation as well as ourselves. In order for America to be 100 percent strong – economically, defensively and morally – we cannot afford the waste of having second- and third-class citizens.”
23. “I don’t think that I or any other Negro, as an American citizen, should have to ask for anything that is rightfully his. We are demanding that we just be given the things that are rightfully ours and that we’re not looking for anything else.”
24. “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.”
25. “A new breed of Republicans has taken over the GOP. It is a new breed which is seeking to sell to Americans a doctrine which is as old as mankind – the doctrine of racial division, the doctrine of racial prejudice, the doctrine of white supremacy.”
26. “I had practiced with the team, and the first scheduled game was with the University of Missouri. They made it quite clear to the Army that they would not play a team with a black player on it. Instead of telling me the truth, the Army gave me leave to go home.”
27. “I speak to you only as an American who happens to be an American Negro and one who is proud of that heritage. We ask for nothing special. We ask only that we be permitted to compete on an even basis, and if we are not worthy, then the competition shall, per se, eliminate us.”
28. “I read tour comments in our paper the last few days and wanted you to know how much I appreciate your courage and honesty… I am sure also you know of some of the possible consequences… The news media… Will use every means to get back at you.. Honors that should be yours will bypass you and the pressures will be great… There will be times when you ask yourself if it’s worth it all. I can only say, Dock, it is…”– Jackie Robinson

In 1947, Robinson won the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award. For six consecutive seasons from 1949-1954 he was an All-Star, and in 1949, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award.

He contributed to the Dodgers 1995 World Series championship and played in six World Series. In 1997, his uniform number 42 was retired by the MLB across all major league teams in his honor.

Robinson was not only a trailblazing baseball star but he made a major impact on society with his words.

His contribution to the civil rights movement was very significant. He lived by the values of courage, determination, teamwork, integrity, persistence, justice, citizenship, excellence, and commitment.

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