Oct - Coubertin Speaks

Oct 31

The athletic life of modern youth demanded the revival of the Olympic Games; fully convinced I called for their revival.

Look towards the far horizons of nature and history. From these heights man draws his strength and motive-power.

We have restored an ancient tradition … However terrible the present upheavals may be … Olympism has gone down in history.

Neither the tendency toward effort nor the habit of harmonious movement develop spontaneously in us. They require apprenticeship and training ...

Only Hellenism could … balance … the mysterious call of conscience (with) the imperatives of communal duty (and) the freedom of individual instinct.

Socrates' famous precept (Know thyself) … remains the foundation of all philosophy, for it is both the leaven and the safeguard of human reason.

It is important for (the IOC’s) current members to gather in their turn at the foot of the eternal mountain, to honor the work we have done together so far … This is an act of gratitude, but an act of hope, as well.

Sport is exposed to serious dangers … If we fail to maintain its nobility, the hopes based upon it will be dashed.

Modern sports lack the loftiness of goals, the whole patriotic and religious apparatus that surrounded the festivals of youth in ancient times.

The primary, fundamental characteristic of ancient Olympism, and of modern Olympism as well, is that it is a religion.

To try to make athletics conform to a system of mandatory moderation is to chase after an illusion. Athletes need the ‘freedom of excess.’

Altruistic joy is a perpetual dawn.

A very different crowd, no doubt, will enter the modern stadium, animated, however … by the same sympathy for youth … the same desire for human harmony (as the ancients).

The Greek genius was among us, transforming a modest congress on athletic sports into a quest for moral betterment and social peace.

The revived Games have the twofold advantage … of being worldwide in character and being celebrated each time in a different place.

The relationship between the question of peace between nations and peace between individuals is a close one.

The only true revolutions are those movements that intend to put ready-made institutions into place suddenly, each detail of which has been worked out in advance.

Athletics is the voluntary and habitual practice of intense muscular exercise based on a desire for progress and extending as far as risk.

A country is not truly sporting until the day when the greater part of its citizens feel a personal need for sport.

In terms of Olympism, the only thing international rivalries can be is fruitful.

To strike a balance among morality, the city and the individual, Hellenism based that balance on conscience, solidarity and personal instinct.

Between tolerance and faith lies mutual respect. And it is precisely mutual respect that democratic societies need …

The wars that threaten our future (will) erupt as the result of a protracted failure of countries to understand each other, the very same lack of understanding that has caused … so many catastrophes in the past.

Celebrating the Olympic Games is reclaiming history.

(After the first games), throughout the provinces of Greece and on all Greek islands, small boys, as they ran out of school, amused themselves ‘playing at the Olympic Games.’

The wonderful name of athlete … applies equally to the gymnast … to the boxer, the equestrian, the rower, and the fencer, as well as to the runner and the javelin thrower.

(Athleticism) must now lend support to the social transformation that the war has made inevitable …

Plunge through the mist, and I tell you again, you will find fresh sunlit life on the other side.

Olympism … serves as an engine for national life and as a basis for civic life. That is its ideal program. Now can it be achieved?

Sport needs freedom. It requires respect for individuality, the chance for each individual to adapt the good or bad aspects of his own nature to exercise …

The Olympic idea must be allowed to spread freely, without fear of the passions or the excesses that produce the excitement and enthusiasm that have to be there.

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