Motivation Quote by Arthur Ashe

Ashe slips a small word - "good" - into a sentence that quietly demolishes the myth of effortless talent. "Later, I discovered" frames the line as a corrective, almost an admission of naivete: early confidence, or early praise, can make excellence feel like a natural state. Then reality arrives. The twist is that the work isn’t just to be great, or to win Wimbledon. It’s to be good. Competent. Reliable. The baseline, he implies, is already a grind.

The phrasing also carries Ashe’s particular authority. He wasn’t simply a champion; he was a player navigating an era when being a Black man in elite tennis meant performing under extra scrutiny, limited access, and expectations that stretched beyond the court. In that context, "a lot of work" reads as understatement with teeth. Being "good" required repetition, strategy, and emotional control - but also composure in the face of institutions that could make your mistakes feel like verdicts.

The subtext is aspirational without being sentimental. Ashe refuses the glamorous sports-movie arc where desire equals destiny. He’s describing professionalism as a daily practice, a kind of moral discipline: you don’t earn excellence once; you re-earn adequacy every day. The line lands because it’s anti-myth, and because it makes failure less shameful: if even being good demands work, struggling isn’t evidence you don’t belong. It’s evidence you’re in the arena.