Did Arthur Ashe say "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can"?

Q: Did Arthur Ashe say "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can"?

No. No one has ever tied this exact three-part wording to Arthur Ashe: it appears in no sourced collection of his words, and quote sites that name a book for it cite no page. Both halves were already in print before Ashe was born in July 1943 — "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are" was credited to Squire Bill Widener in Theodore Roosevelt's 1913 autobiography, and the "Start where you are / Use what you have' phrasing was in newspapers in 1942–43. The triplet is a later condensation with no identified author.

Who really said it

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can

Not Arthur Ashe — a folk saying older than he was Squire Bill Widener Widener’s Valley, Virginia · earliest documented voice of the saying, via Roosevelt, 1913

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

No one has ever tied this exact three-part wording to Arthur Ashe: it appears in no sourced collection of his words, and quote sites that name a book for it cite no page. Both halves were already in print before Ashe was born in July 1943 — “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are” was credited to Squire Bill Widener in Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913 autobiography, and the “Start where you are / Use what you have’ phrasing was in newspapers in 1942–43. The triplet is a later condensation with no identified author.

Last verified 15 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” widely credited to Arthur Ashe, but no source in his work has ever been produced, and the wording was in print before he was born in 1943. The oldest documented version is Squire Bill Widener's, quoted in Theodore Roosevelt's 1913 autobiography: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are." — via quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Arthur Ashe. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Squire Bill Widener — farmer quoted by Theodore Roosevelt, 1913. Theme: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The closest thing to an original

Work: Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
First published: 1913
Wording there: “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are” — not the modern triplet
Ashe connection: None documented

There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener’s Valley, Virginia, which sums up one’s duty in life: “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.” 1913 · the oldest documented form

This is the ancestor, not the quote. It shares only the final clause with the line credited to Arthur Ashe — and note that Roosevelt says the philosophy was quoted by Widener, leaving open that it was already old in 1913.

Primary source, 1913

Read the Widener passage in Roosevelt's Autobiography

Quote Investigator's chronology of this saying family

How the line travelled

1913 — Theodore Roosevelt prints “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are” in his autobiography and credits Squire Bill Widener of Widener’s Valley, Virginia, rather than claiming it. Confirmed in the full text ↗
1942–43 — the other half surfaces. Quote Investigator documents a George Washington Carver formula in The Baltimore Sun (8 November 1942) and a January 1943 speech list running “Start Where You Are; Use What You Have; Make Something of It; Never Be Satisfied.” See the chronology ↗
10 July 1943 — Arthur Ashe is born in Richmond, Virginia. By this date both halves of the triplet are already in American print. Biography ↗
Today — the condensed three-part version circulates under Ashe’s name on aggregators, stadium merchandise and social posts, always without a page number. Wikiquote’s sourced Ashe page omits it entirely ↗

No rights status can honestly be asserted for this wording, because nobody has identified who wrote it or when it first appeared. The 1913 Roosevelt passage quoted above is public domain in the United States, but that is a different sentence — it is not the line credited to Arthur Ashe. Treat the triplet itself as unresolved rather than free to use.

Fact-check

Three famous names, one anonymous saying

This is a floating quotation: a piece of folk wisdom with no fixed author that gets re-pinned on whichever famous figure it flatters. Three names collect it, and all three claims break down under a fetch.

Arthur Ashe No source ever produced

Every quote aggregator credits Ashe, but none cites a page. Wikiquote’s Ashe page ↗ lists only quotations with real citations, and this is not among them. The book most often named as the source, Portrait in Motion (1975) ↗, is a lending item whose text could not be searched here — so the claim stands unverified, and it originates with user-submitted quote sites rather than any edition of Ashe.

Theodore Roosevelt He credited someone else

Roosevelt did put the saying into print, which is why his name attached to it — but he gave the credit away in the same breath. Quote Investigator ↗ concludes that Bill Widener deserves the credit precisely on the strength of Roosevelt’s own 1913 testimony.

George Washington Carver Real, but a different saying

This one is not a fabrication — it is a mismatch. Quote Investigator ↗ documents a genuinely Carver-linked formula in The Baltimore Sun of 8 November 1942: “Start where you are, with what you have, make something of it, never be satisfied.” Four parts, different ending, and it is not the line credited to Ashe.

Nobody knows who wrote the triplet. The honest floor is this: the oldest documented member of its family belongs to a Virginia farmer named Bill Widener, recorded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1913 ↗ — thirty years before Arthur Ashe was born.

Context

Why this one sticks to Ashe

The line is a perfect fit for the man, which is exactly why it travels. Arthur Ashe grew up under segregation in Richmond, was barred from the city’s whites-only courts, became the only Black man ever to win Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open, and spent his last years campaigning on apartheid and AIDS. A maxim about making do with what little you are given sounds like something he earned the right to say.

But sounding right is not evidence. The saying was already circulating in American print before Ashe could walk, in two separate strands that later fused into the tidy three-beat version we know. Attaching it to a beloved figure gives a piece of anonymous folk wisdom a face and a biography — and that is usually how these attributions are born.

The quote fits Arthur Ashe’s life so well that nobody thought to ask for a page number.

How the two halves came together

The “do what you can” strand is the older one. Roosevelt printed it in 1913 and explicitly handed the credit to Squire Bill Widener — and Roosevelt’s own phrasing (“quoted by Squire Bill Widener”) hints that even Widener was passing on something he had heard.

The “start where you are / use what you have” strand shows up decades later. Quote Investigator documents a four-part formula tied to George Washington Carver in The Baltimore Sun of 8 November 1942 — “Start where you are, with what you have, make something of it, never be satisfied” — and a January 1943 speech list running “Start Where You Are; Use What You Have; Make Something of It; Never Be Satisfied.”

Observation, not established fact: the modern triplet reads like those two strands trimmed and welded together. No researcher has documented who did the welding, or when. What can be said is that the raw material predates Ashe entirely.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Simplicity Work Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Do What You Can, With What You've Got, Where You Arequoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative chronology of this saying family. Credits Squire Bill Widener on Roosevelt's 1913 testimony, documents the Carver-linked 1942 and 1943 variants — and never mentions Arthur Ashe.

Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (1913), full textgutenberg.org

The primary source. Contains the Widener passage verbatim, with Roosevelt handing the credit away rather than claiming the line.

Arthur Ashe — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Ashe's sourced quotations, each with a citation. The famous triplet is conspicuously absent from all of them.

Arthur Ashe — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the man himself: born 10 July 1943, died 6 February 1993. Establishes that the saying predates him.

Arthur Ashe: Portrait in Motion (1975)archive.org

The book quote sites most often name as the source. It is a lending item, so its full text could not be searched here — the citation remains unverified either way.

The earliest name in the trail

The man Roosevelt credited

Squire Bill Widener

Widener’s Valley, Virginia · farmer quoted by Theodore Roosevelt, 1913

Almost nothing is known about Bill Widener beyond a single sentence in Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (1913), where the former president passed along “a bit of homely philosophy” he had heard from a squire in Widener’s Valley, Virginia. Roosevelt took no credit for the line and named Widener as its source — and even then wrote that Widener quoted it, so the saying may be older still. He is the earliest documented voice of a maxim that has since been reworded and pinned on far more famous people.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best available source

Earliest documented form: Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (1913), quoting Squire Bill Widener — “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.” The three-part wording popularly credited to Arthur Ashe has no documented source in his published work.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can’?” Last verified 15 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/start-where-you-are-use-what-you-have-do-what-you-can