Jim Brown never missed a game in his nine seasons with the Cleveland Browns, from 1957 to 1965. But the NFL legend would retire at his peak to become an actor, starring in more than thirty films, and, eventually, a social activist. In 2008, he participated in Esquire's long-running What I've Learned interview series, where a subject's wisdom appears in their own words. You can read the piece below. On May 19, 2023, it was announced that Brown had died at the age of 87.
People say, I'm seventy-two years young. My ass. I'm seventy-two years old. But you've got to live to get old. You can't get old without living.
I'm not a Martin Luther King and a Gandhi motherfucker. I don't know what they were talking about. Spit on my ass and I'll knock you out. I ain't going to sing and march, man. But I'm fair.
If you truly believe something, and it's incorrect, that doesn't mean you don't have integrity.
Clarence Thomas is a great place to examine who we are, what we think, what works, and what doesn't.
A liberal is arrogant enough to think he can do you a half-assed favor. He is superior enough to think he can give you something that you don't deserve. A liberal will cut off your leg so he can hand you a crutch.
You can't help a motherfucker sitting on his ass, crying the blues.
You cannot get me to be disloyal to a friend. You just can't do it. Loyalty is a part of what I live by. I didn't say I was going to be loyal to my friend because he was right. I'm going to be loyal to my friend because he's my friend.
You can't help a motherfucker sitting on his ass, crying the blues.To leave at twenty-nine years old, MVP, having won the championship in '64 and played for it in '65. To go into the movies and break the color barrier and be in a sex scene with Raquel Welch. To get to be in The Dirty Dozen with some great actors. To make more money in one year than you damn near made in nine years of football. Everything about it was ingenious.
I gave away most of my trophies, put away the plaques.
God ain't got nothing to do with winning a damn football game.
Sex is always wonderful, but it's like having a great meal. It is only what it is. It can never be everything in itself. And it has a downside that's devastating.
When you understand sex, you understand that your fidelity is the greatest thing you have. It's yours, not hers.
The need to be cared for is the base of everything. In the penitentiaries, you won't hear gangbangers and criminals say, "No, I don't want to be cared for by nobody." When you care about them, they'll open up to you. They'll tell you shit they'd never tell for money or for sex.
It's the biggest crutch we can ever have: I'm a victim because of what white folks did. I was a slave. I didn't get a fair shot when I went for the job that they didn't give to me. I look and say, Look how you look, motherfucker. I wouldn't hire you myself. So let's deal with the fundamentals, man. Get yourself together and then we can fight the battle.
Sex is always wonderful, but it's like having a great meal. It is only what it is.Tell you what you got to do to compete. What you got to do to compete is compete.
You got the trickle-down effect. But what if I live in Watts? Poor people, you can vote a hundred times a day, you ain't gonna get that shit.
Ultimately, the soil replenishes.
If you're smarter than me, tell me some shit. I'll listen, you know. This is an open forum.
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