As he argued for continuing educational reforms during World War I, Baron Pierre de Coubertin insisted that mutual respect—a moral quality produced, in his opinion, through sport and competition—must be cultivated in the young.  He believed mutual respect to be one of the foundational values of any democratic society. This quote is taken from “The Education of Adolescents in the 20^th Century,” which appeared in his book, Le Respect Mutuel—or Moral Education—that year.  As the Olympic Movement evolved, the idea of mutual respect between competitors became a central tenet in its core values, which today are often described as “excellence, friendship and respect.”

“We should look to a superior principle, uniting all the generosity of tolerance without its customary coldness, and all the fertility of faith without its narrowness or frequent intransigence. Between tolerance and faith lies mutual respect. And it is precisely mutual respect that democratic societies need, to the extent that without it they tend to fall into anarchy. It is going too far to demand fraternity from men. Fraternity is for angels. Mutual respect is something that can be asked of humanity without being overly ambitious.”