Ultimate Collection of Game Day Inspirational Quotes to Ignite Your Passion

"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

- Michael Jordan

"You don't show up on game day and expect to be great. Greatness happens in practice. You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them."

- Michael Jordan

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up."

- Vince Lombardi

"Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision."

- Muhammad Ali

"Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle."

- Christian D. Larson

"Winners never quit and quitters never win."

- Vince Lombardi

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will."

- Vince Lombardi

"Don’t count the days; make the days count."

- Muhammad Ali

"It's not the will to win that matters. It's the will to prepare to win that matters."

- Paul Bear Bryant

"There is only one way to succeed in anything…and that is to give it everything."

- Vince Lombardi

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."

- Vince Lombardi

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you can't accept losing, you can't win."

- Vince Lombardi

"Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority."

- Vince Lombardi

"It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters."

- Paul Bryant

"Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing."

- Javier Báez

"Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is."

- Vince Lombardi

"It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up."

- Vince Lombardi

"The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning."

- Pele

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"Don’t practise until you get it right. Practise until you can’t get it wrong."

- Harvey Mackay

"You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination."

- Tommy Lasorda

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard."

- Tim Notke

"Success is where preparation and opportunity meet."

- Bobby Unser

"Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won."

- Billy Bowerman

"The only one who can tell you 'you can’t win' is you, and you don’t have to listen."

- Jessica Ennis-Hill

"The only limit to our realisation of tomorrow is our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose."

- Ernie Banks

"You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them."

- Michael Jordan

"Remember, once you set a goal, it's all about how hard you're willing to work, how much you're willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it."

- J.J. Watt

"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way."

- Babe Ruth

"Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play."

- Mike Singletary

"A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide."

- Mickey Mantle

"The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my 11 best, but my best 11."

- Knute Rockne

"Football is a game of controlled anger. It is a game of retribution. It’s about will."

- Brian Dawkins

"Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it."

- George S. Halas

"No one ever drowned in sweat."

- Lou Holtz

"No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it."

- Ray Lewis

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size in the fight of the dog."

- Archie Griffin

"When you've got something to prove, there's nothing greater than a challenge."

- Terry Bradshaw

"If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today."

- Lou Holtz

"When people told me I wasn’t going to make it, I listened to the one person who told me I was: me."

- Shannon Sharpe

"Effort will never be questioned."

- Jalen Hurts

"If you work hard and you play well, all those critics quiet themselves pretty quickly."

- Peyton Manning

"If you do the bare minimum, expect bare minimum results. You want to be great, work to be great."

- J.J. Watt

"Winners, I am convinced, imagine their dreams first. They want it with all their heart and expect it to come true. There is, I believe, no other way to live."

- Joe Montana

"When you lose, talk little. When you win, talk less."

- Tom Brady

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it."

- Lou Holtz

"Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble."

- John Madden

"You can learn a line from a win and a book from defeat."

- Paul Brown

"When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you."

- Walter Payton

"Winning isn’t getting ahead of others. It’s getting ahead of yourself."

- Roger Staubach

"Do you want to know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play."

- Mike Singletary

"Trust that you can get back up and not give in. Ever."

- Patrick Willis

"When you don't give up, you cannot fail."

- Adrian Peterson

"I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated."

- Emmitt Smith

"Set your goals high, and don't stop till you get there."

- Gale Sayers

"To do things you've never done before, you have to do things you've never done before."

- Sean Payton

"A champion is simply someone who did not give up when they wanted to."

- Tom Landry

"I am going to outwork everybody because no one was going to give me anything."

- Dawson Knox

"When you don’t give up, you cannot fail."

- Adrian Peterson

"It doesn’t matter what people say about me. I weather the storm."

- Terrell Owens

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it."

- Charles Swindoll

"The best motivation always comes from within."

- Michael Johnson

"While I was coaching, I believe the motivation talk I gave my players that achieved the best results was in reference to their present game-day effort. I stressed the fact that today's performance could be the most important of their life. Yesterday's performance was already history. Tomorrow really never comes, so today's performance is what really counts."

- Bill Sharman

"To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you."

- Tony Dorsett

"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."

- Muhammad Ali

"Difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter."

- Dan Reeves

"Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement."

- Charles F. Kettering

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward."

- Vernon Sanders Law

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records."

- William Arthur Ward

"When it's game situation, when it's game day, game time, when it's World Cup, when it's these tournaments that happen once every so often, I live for that, I live for that challenge."

- Tiffeny Milbrett

"The man on top of the mountain didn't fall there."

- Vince Lombardi

"The most valuable player is the one who makes the most players valuable."

- Peyton Manning

"It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day."

- Willie Mays

"You can’t win together if you don’t work together."

- Joe Paterno

"Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character."

- Alan Armstrong

"To the young: work, work, work, and then work some more."

- Ed Reed

"Good things come to those who work!"

- Greg Dortch

"Success isn't measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace."

- Mike Ditka

"The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before."

- Steve Young

"When I step onto the court, I don't have to think about anything. If I have a problem off the court, I find that after I play, my mind is clearer and I can come up with a better solution. It's like therapy. It relaxes me and allows me to solve problems."

- Michael Jordan

"My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win... channel your energy. Focus."

- Carl Lewis

"I have yet to be in a game where luck was involved."

- Urban Meyer

"You cannot make progress with excuses."

- Cam Newton

"Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't."

- Jerry Rice

"Embrace the new, no matter how uncomfortable, and make it work for you."

- Alex Smith

"Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence. If you're in control, they're in control."

- Tom Landry

"You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That's the mark of a true professional."

- Joe Paterno

"Success isn't owned, it's leased. And rent is due every day."

- J.J. Watt

"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

- Wayne Gretzky

"Every day is an opportunity disguised as a challenge."

- Tiki Barber

"You know, you can try and plan [filming] as much as you want, but you get there on game day and you get thrown a curve ball, I guess, hey, the game plan goes out the window. You've got to adapt."

- Michael B. Jordan

"Sports do not build character. They reveal it."

- Heywood Broun

"What's tough is being good every day."

- Willie Mays

"Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles."

- Alex Karras

"True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit."

- Alexander Pope

"To begin, begin."

- Peter Nivio Zarlenga

"I was told over and over again that I would never be successful, that I was not going to be competitive and the technique was simply not going to work. All I could do was shrug and say "We'll just have to see.""

- Dick Fosbury

"Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength."

- Phil Jackson

"One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it."

- Knute Rockne

"I never criticize a player until they are first convinced of my unconditional confidence in their abilities."

- John Robinson

"Know yourself and you will win all battles."

- Lao Tzu

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong."

- Peter T. McIntyre

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

- Thomas Alva Edison

"You owe it to yourself to be the best you can possibly be - in baseball and in life."

- Pete Rose

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

"Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best."

- Tim Duncan

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Tough times never last, but tough people do."

- Robert Schuller

"I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability."

- Bruce Jenner

"The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight."

- Arthur Ashe

"Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like muscles of the body."

- Lynn Jennings

"Luck? Sure. But only after long practice and only with the ability to think under pressure."

- Babe Didrikson Zaharias

"On game day, I'm as nervous as a pig in a packing plant."

- Darrell Royal

"If we lose a game, I change up what I did that day, like if I eat something that day I will not eat the same thing again the next game day."

- Kliff Kingsbury

"Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety."

- Jack Nicklaus

"As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round."

- Ben Hogan

"It's a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square."

- Pete Rose

"Don't tell me how rocky the sea is, just bring the ship in."

- Lou Holtz

"God gets you to the plate, but once you're there you're on your own."

- Ted Williams

"In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened."

- Tommy Lasorda

"The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back."

- John Madden

"You don't play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball."

- Bobby Knight

"The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing."

- Jackie Joyner Kersee

"A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety."

- Aesop

"A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning."

- Chuck Noll

"Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hittin."

- Yogi Berra

"Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club, don't you?"

- Ben Hogan

"Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment."

- Heywood Hale Broun

"The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer."

- John Madden

"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If someone met me on a game day, he wouldn't like me. The days in between, I'm the goodest guy you can find."

- Roger Clemens

"If we could have just screwed another head on his shoulders, he would have been the greatest golfer who ever lived."

- Ben Hogan

"[The movies] glamorize game day a little bit too much. It's such a focus. They miss a lot of the nuts and bolts, and the time that goes into the preparation each week, or each couple of days in basketball."

- Vince Kehres

"Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game."

- Donald Trump

"I've learned a lot about the process. I had no idea how the balls got from the officials locker room down on the field and so forth and so on and all of that. That's not something I have ever thought or concerned myself about [on] game day. I've concerned myself with preparing and coaching the team."

- Bill Belichick

"I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles."

- Emil Zatopek

"Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there."

- Will Rogers

"What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive."

- Arnold Palmer

"No special suits for game days. I like to keep all my favorites in the mix. I'm always trying to look my best, even when I'm just visiting a city for eight hours and then getting back on a plane again."

- Henrik Lundqvist

"I still miss the players and I miss the game and the strategy. The first couple years were really difficult. Now I realize I'll never coach again. It's still hard to go into the stadium on a game day, because it's hard to just be a fan. But it's easier now than it was the first two or three years."

- Tom Osborne

"I do like to wear the same hat on game days, but I consider that more of a routine thing than a superstition."

- David Wright

"It's an honor to support such a worthy program.TURF aims to protect the integrity of tailgating and to keep game day family-friendly."

- Boomer Esiason

"My overall knowledge of football specifications, the overall process that happens on game day with the footballs is very limited. I would say that during the course of the game, I honestly never - it probably has happened on an incomplete pass or something - but I've never touched a game ball. It's not something I have any familiarity with on that."

- Bill Belichick

"Push yourself because no one else is going to do it for you."

"Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up."

"Your greatest opponent is yourself; challenge your limits."

"Focus on your goals, not the obstacles."

"Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."

"Believe in the power of your dreams and fight to achieve them."

"Leave everything on the field; no regrets."

"Pain is temporary, but pride is forever."

"The strength within you is greater than any challenge ahead."

"Winning is a habit; success is a choice."

"Your dedication defines your success."

"Play with passion and purpose."

"Success is earned one practise at a time."

"Rise above the challenge and shine."

"The game is won in the mind before it’s won on the field."

"Every play is a chance to prove yourself."

"Great things come from hard work and perseverance."

"Commit to the process and the results will follow."

"The game isn't over until you've given it your all."