Hank Aaron
The thing I like about baseball is that it's one-on-one. You stand up there alone, and if you make a mistake, it's your mistake. If you hit a home run, it's your home run.Collection: Home
I tell young people - including my granddaughter - there is no shortcut in life. You have to take it one step at a time and work hard. And you have to give back.Collection: Work
For many years, even after Jackie Robinson, baseball was so segregated, really. You just didn't expect us to have a chance to do anything. Baseball was meant for the lily-white.Collection: Chance
My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.Collection: Sports
I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing's a joke to me. I don't feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.Collection: Smile
The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.Collection: Home
I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it.Collection: Life
I'm hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself. Whoever it is, I'd be pulling for him.Collection: Home
Failure is a part of success.Collection: Success
It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.
The pitcher has got only a ball. I've got a bat. So the percentage in weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting.
You can only milk a cow so long, then you're left holding the pail.
I don't see pitches down the middle anymore - not even in batting practice.
Didn't come up here to read. Came up here to hit.
Too bad integration didn't come sooner, because there were so many ballplayers that could have made the major leagues. That's why, you look back, and - not to take away anything from Babe Ruth or some of those other guys - they didn't play against the greatest ballplayers in the world.
I am very proud to be an American. This country has so much potential, I'd just like to see things better, or whatever, and I think it will be.
People were not ready to accept me as a baseball player. The easiest part of that whole thing, chasing the Babe's record, was playing the game itself. The hardest thing was after the game was over, dealing with the press. They could never understand.
I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.
Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution.
Jackie was speaking at a drugstore, and I said, 'I'm not going to get this opportunity again, so I better take my chances and listen to Jackie Robinson now.' Little did I know, I got front row seats, and next to me was my father.
On the field, blacks have been able to be super giants. But, once our playing days are over, this is the end of it and we go back to the back of the bus again.
Some people resented the fact I was trying to break a white man's record.
I don't feel right unless I have a sport to play or at least a way to work up a sweat.
Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated.
I never thought we'd ever have a black president. President Obama has done such a tremendous job... He just has been unable to get what he needs to be moved at the level it should be moved.
Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.Collection: Wisdom
In playing ball, and in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: being prepared to seize the moment and having the courage to take your best swing.Collection: Carpe Diem
Failure will never stand int he way of success if you learn from it.Collection: Bed Of Roses
I need to depend on Someone who is bigger, stronger and wiser than I am. I don't do it on my own. God is my strength. He gave me a good body and some talent and the freedom to develop it. He helps me when things go wrong. He forgives me when I fall on my face. He lights the way.Collection: Fall
What you do with your life and how you do it is not only a reflection on you, but on your family and all of those institutions that have helped to make you who you are.Collection: Reflection
Consistency is what counts; you have to be able to do things over and over again.Collection: Basketball
I don't want people to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember Henry Aaron.Collection: People
I think what separates a superstar from the average ballplayer is that he concentrates just a little bit longer.Collection: Inspirational
The way I see it, it's a great thing to be the man who hit the most home runs, but it's a greater thing to be the man who did the most with the home runs he hit. So as long as there's a chance that maybe I can hammer out a little justice now and then, or a little opportunity here and there, I intend to do as I always have -- keep swinging.Collection: Running
I would like people not to think in terms of the 755 home runs I hit but think in terms of what I've accomplished off the field and some of the things I stood for.Collection: Baseball
There's only one way to break the color line. Be good. I mean, play good. Play so good that they can't remember what color you were before the season started.Collection: Mean
Once the record was mine, I had to use it like a Louisville Slugger. I believed, and still do, that there was a reason why I was chosen to break the record. I feel it's my task to carry on where Jackie Robinson left off, and I only know of one way to go about it. It's the only way I've ever had of dealing with things like fastballs and bigotry -- keep swinging at them.Collection: Louisville
There wasn't much white people would allow us to do in those days. You could be a schoolteacher or an athlete to get away from the manual labor and servant-type jobs, but there wasn't much else they were going to allow you [to] do.Collection: Jobs
I've tried a lot of things in the off-season, but the only thing I really know is baseball.Collection: Baseball
I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious.Collection: Smile
Does Pete (Rose) hustle? Before the All-Star game he came into the clubhouse and took off his shoes and they ran another mile without him.Collection: Stars
I never thought home runs were all that exciting. I still think the triple is the most exciting thing in baseball. To me, a triple is like a guy taking the ball on his 1-yard line and running 99 yards for a touchdown.Collection: Baseball
Can I smoke now without someone taking my picture?Collection: Smoke
There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life.Collection: Bed Of Roses
If I knew exactly what I know now and had it to do over, I'd be a switch hitter. No telling what I could have done.Collection: Done
Maybe the day will come when I can sit back and be content....But until that day comes, I intend to stay in the batter's box - I don't let the big guys push me out of there anymore - and keep hammering away.Collection: Sports
Baseball needs me because it needs somebody to stir the pot, and I need it because it's my life. It's the means I have to make a little difference in the world.Collection: Baseball
You've got to remember, the older you get the slower you get. I've seen a lot of players get old ... if I can have a good season in 1972 and come back with another good one, well, that's different. I might not quit. But two bad ones back to back and staying home would be written on the wall.Collection: Wall
Roger Maris lost his hair the season he hit sixty-one, I still have all my hair, but when it's over, I'm going home to Mobile and fish for a long time.Collection: Home