Major Taylor's Quotes

Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor (November 26, 1878 – June 21, 1932) was an American professional cyclist. He was born and raised in Indianapolis, where he worked in bicycle shops and began racing multiple distances in the track and road disciplines of cycling. As a teenager, he moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, with his trainer and had a successful amateur career, which included breaking track records.

Major Taylor's selected quotes:

Major Taylor about Success:

These rules may seem simple enough, but it will require great morale and physical courage to ...
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Major Taylor about Confidence:

Realizing full well that fine condition and confidence will not in themselves make a champion, it ...
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Major Taylor about Success:

I pray they will carry on in spite of that dreadful monster prejudice, and with patience, ...
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Major Taylor about Good:

As a reward of their clean living and good habits these great stars have been able ...
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Major Taylor about Color:

There will always be that dreadful monster prejudice to do extra battle against because of their ...
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Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor (November 26, 1878 – June 21, 1932) was an American professional cyclist. He was born and raised in Indianapolis, where he worked in bicycle shops and began racing combined distances in the track and road disciplines of cycling. As a teenager, he moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, with his trainer and had a affluent amateur career, which included breaking track records.

Taylor turned professional in 1896, at the age of 18, living in cities on the East Coast and participating in multiple track deeds including six-day races. He moved his focus to the sprint event in 1897, competing in a national racing circuit, winning many races and purchase popularity taking into consideration the public. Between 1898 and 1899, he set numerous world archives in race distances ranging from the quarter-mile (0.4 km) to the two-mile (3.2 km).

Taylor won the sprint event at the 1899 world track championships to become the first African American to reach the level of cycling world champion and the second black athlete to win a world championship in any sport (following Canadian boxer George Dixon, 1892). He was next a national sprint champion in 1899 and 1900. He raced in the U.S., Europe and Australasia amongst 1901 and 1904, beating the world’s best riders. After a

2+1⁄2-year hiatus, he made a brief return in 1907, before retiring aged 32 to his home in Worcester in 1910.

Towards the grow less of his energy Taylor faced rasping financial difficulties, which goaded him into poverty. He spent the supreme two years of his excitement in Chicago, Illinois, where he died of a heart anger in 1932. Throughout his career he challenged the racial prejudice he encountered upon and off the track and became a pioneering role model for extra athletes facing racial discrimination. Several cycling clubs, trails, and events in the U.S. have been named in his honor, as skillfully as the Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis and Major Taylor Boulevard in Worcester. Other tributes combine memorials and historic markers in Worcester, Indianapolis, and at his gravesite in Chicago. He has after that been memorialized in film, music and fashion.

All quotes from Major Taylor sorted alphabetically:

Major Taylor about Greatest:

Clean living is the cardinal principle in the lives of the world's greatest athletes, as the phenomenal performances of these outstanding characters will obviously show.

Major Taylor about Good:

As a reward of their clean living and good habits these great stars have been able to withstand the rigorous test of stamina and physical exertion and have thus successfully extended their most remarkable careers over a period of many strenuous years.

Major Taylor about Athlete:

An athlete must have ability to reach the top, but many who have ability and who do not live clean lives never have and never will be champions for obvious reasons.

Major Taylor about Life:

I can hardly express in words my deep feeling and sympathy for them, knowing as I do, the many serious handicaps and obstacles that will confront them in almost every walk of life.

Major Taylor about Time:

Each great athlete must some day bow to that perennial old champion, Father Time, even as I, for Time eventually wins.

Major Taylor about Best:

I might go on discussing this subject at great length, but after all is said, done, and written, my own book of experiences will best show what these obstacles are, and how I managed to overcome them to some extent.

Major Taylor about Experience:

I know that a good many champions have entertained the thought that the more they discourage youngsters, the longer they would reign. However, this theory never impressed me, and I always made it a point to give youths the benefit of my experience in bicycle racing.

Major Taylor about Best:

I have also noticed that when a rider who had confidence in his ability was defeated, after doing his level best to win, always received an ovation from the gathering.

Major Taylor about Champion:

I would like to cite an instance which proves the efficacy of clean living on the part of an athlete coupled with the inspiration received from a champion which go a long way to making a champion.

Major Taylor about Good:

I would advise all youths aspiring to athletic fame or a professional career to practice clean living, fair play and good sportsmanship.

Major Taylor about Success:

I pray they will carry on in spite of that dreadful monster prejudice, and with patience, courage, fortitude and perseverance achieve success for themselves.

Major Taylor about Success:

Modesty should be typical of the success of a champion.

Major Taylor about Friendship:

In closing I wish to say that while I was sorely beset by a number of white riders in my racing days, I have also enjoyed the friendship of countless thousands of white men whom I class as among my closest friends.

Major Taylor about Trail:

In a word I was a pioneer, and therefore had to blaze my own trail.

Major Taylor about Today:

The moral turpitude of the boys of today appears to center in their failure to concentrate on any particular objective long enough to obtain their maximum results.

Major Taylor about Confidence:

Realizing full well that fine condition and confidence will not in themselves make a champion, it is my belief, however, that they are essential factors.

Major Taylor about Success:

To these ideals which were instilled in me when I was a youth, I attribute in a large degree the success that was mine on the bicycle tracks of the world.

Major Taylor about Success:

These rules may seem simple enough, but it will require great morale and physical courage to adhere to them. But if carried out in the strict sense of the word it will surely lead to a greater success than could otherwise be attained.

Major Taylor about Color:

There will always be that dreadful monster prejudice to do extra battle against because of their color.