I therefore think that I was right in trying from the outset of the Olympic revival to rekindle a religious awareness.
Holding an Olympic Games means evoking history.
The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.
Sport must be the heritage of all men and of all social classes.
The important thing is that all stages from adolescent to mature man, work is done to spread the sporting spirit.
In no way can sport be considered a luxury object.
Sport must be accessible to working class youth.
Olympism is not a system – it is a state of mind. This state of mind has emerged from a double cult: that of effort and that of Eurythmy – a taste of excess and a taste of measure combined.
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.
In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty.
Sport is part of every man and woman’s heritage and its absence can never be compensated for.
Success comprises in itself the seeds of its own decline and sport is not spared by this law.
All sports must be treated on the basis of equality.
The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.
A country can truly call itself sporting when the majority of its people feel a personal need for sport.
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.
In the name of all competitors, I promise that we will take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by all the rules which govern them in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams.
Festival of the impassioned efforts and manifold ambitions of all forms of youthful activity of every generation springing from the threshold of life.
Sport is the habitual and voluntary cultivation of intensive physical effort.
Olympism is a doctrine of the fraternity between the body and the soul.
The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.