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

All sports for all people.
Pierre de Coubertin

All sports must be treated on the basis of equality.
Pierre de Coubertin

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

For me sport was a religion... with religious sentiment.
Pierre de Coubertin

Holding an Olympic Games means evoking history.
Pierre de Coubertin

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

In no way can sport be considered a luxury object.
Pierre de Coubertin

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

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.
Pierre de Coubertin


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.
Pierre de Coubertin

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

Racial distinctions should not play a role in sport.
Pierre de Coubertin

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

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

Sport must be accessible to working class youth.
Pierre de Coubertin

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

Success comprises in itself the seeds of its own decline and sport is not spared by this law.
Pierre de Coubertin

Swifter, higher, stronger.
Pierre de Coubertin

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.
Pierre de Coubertin