The most important thing in ...

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.
 Pierre de Coubertin

More phrases

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.
Never complain and never explain.
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
 George S. Patton
Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.
 Robert Schuller
Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
 Harriet Beecher Stowe

Quotes from the same author

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.
 Pierre de Coubertin
Sport is part of every man and woman's heritage and its absence can never be compensated for.
 Pierre de Coubertin
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.
 Pierre de Coubertin
Olympism is a doctrine of the fraternity between the body and the soul.
 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