Inspiring Words: 50 Motivational Quotes from Legendary Athletes

"You have to believe in your process. You have to believe in the things that you are doing to help the team win. I think you have to take the good with the bad."

- Tom Brady

"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

"Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears."

- Laird Hamilton

"I’ve been in a poor physical shape many times in my career and I’ve had some of my best results. My best performances happened because my mind was in the right place. The mind is definitely stronger than the body."

- Kelly Slater

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

- Arthur Ashe

"Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical."

- Yogi Berra

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

- Lynn Jennings

"You’ve got to love what you’re doing. If you love it, you can overcome any handicap or the soreness or all the aches and pains, and continue to play for a long, long time."

- Gordie Howe

"Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back… play for her."

- Mia Hamm

"Pressure is a privilege, it only comes to those who earn it."

- Billie Jean King

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

- Wayne Gretzky

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming."

- Coach John Wooden

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

- Babe Ruth

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually, it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever."

- Lance Armstrong

"You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it."

- Lionel Messi

"The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare."

- Coach Bobby Knight

"Life is meant to be a challenge, because challenges make you grow."

- Manny Pacquiao

"You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the further you get."

- Michael Phelps

"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team."

- Phil Jackson

"You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit."

- Abby Wambach

"I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all."

- Simone Biles

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in determination."

- Usain Bolt

"You have to believe in your process. You have to believe in the things that you are doing to help the team win."

- Tom Brady

"Tomorrow's not promised so you've really got to take advantage of what you have in the present."

- Diana Taurasi

"You can't let one bad moment spoil a bunch of good ones."

- Dale Earnhardt

"The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done."

- Arnold Palmer

"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."

- Yogi Berra

"You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy."

- Arthur Ashe

"It's not how you start the season, it's how you finish."

- Albert Pujols

"I want to be different. If everyone is wearing black, I want to be wearing red."

- Maria Sharapova

"Motivation is temporary. Inspiration is permanent."

- Kelly Slater

"You can never let anything distract you from your main objective. My only goal is to be great."

- Larry Fitzgerald

"Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t pretend that you do and, at some point, you will."

- Venus Williams

"If you want to be a Champion, you've got to feel like one, you've got to act like one, you've got to look like one."

- Red Auerbach

"The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra."

- Jimmy Johnson

"You should never be defined by what you do, by the things you have; you've got to define yourself by who you are and who you impact and how you impact people."

- Tony Dungy

"I know I’m capable of greatness, and I’m expecting to reach that level."

- Aaron Rodgers

"It's about doing it in a way that it can't be done any better. That is the goal every day."

- Geno Auriemma

"You have to dream and reach for the stars, and if you miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds."

- Mike Tyson

"The only person who can really motivate you is you."

- Shaq

"I never stop looking for things to try and make myself better."

- Barry Bonds

"It's not all about talent. It's about dependability, consistency, and being able to improve."

- Bill Belichick

"If you don’t fall how are you going to know what getting up is like."

- Steph Curry

"When the going gets tough, I'm not always sure what you do. I'm not saying that I know how to fix everything when the going gets tough, but I do know this: when the going goes tough, you don't quit. And you don't fold up. And you don't go in the other direction."

- John Madden

"You can never let anything distract you from your main objective. My only goal is to be great. That's all I want. That's all I ever aspire to be. Greatness is something nobody can ever take away from you, no matter what happens. So I put all my energy and focus into my craft."

- Larry Fitzgerald

"What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all."

- Willie Mays

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

- Wayne Gretzky

"Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."

- Michael Jordan

"When I’m down or maybe when it’s close in the match, I feel like I’m still in it. I don’t feel like I’m letting down. Mentally, I’m still really, really tough."

- Maria Sharapova

"I think I was given a gift to play golf and to be mentally strong."

- Karrie Webb

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

- John Wooden

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

- Pele

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way."

- Satchel Paige

"You’re never a loser until you quit trying."

- Mike Ditka

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

- Dan Reeves

"Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding."

- Jim Valvano

"Winning and losing isn't everything; sometimes, the journey is just as important as the outcome."

- Alex Morgan

"I just wish people would realize that anything's possible if you try; dreams are made possible if you try."

- Terry Fox

"To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift."

- Steve Prefontaine

"Authenticity is everything! You have to wake up every day and look in the mirror, and you want to be proud of the person who's looking back at you."

- Aaron Rodgers

"You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity."

- David Goggins

"The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that's the day you start to the top."

- O. J. Simpson

"Every experience, good or bad, you have to learn from."

- Patrick Mahomes

"Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication."

- Gail Devers

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever."

- Yogi Berra

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

- Greg LeMond

"You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you'll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit."

- Pat Riley

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

- Steve Young

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

- Paul Bryant

"A champion is someone who gets up when he can't."

- Jack Dempsey

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

- Pele

"I don't believe a champion is the biggest, baddest, meanest dude in the world. I think the champion is like a warrior; it's like the head knight or lead samurai: humble men of integrity, respect, and honor that treat people kindly."

- Jon Jones

"I just want to be better every day, to get better every day, not to be better than anyone else."

- Neymar

"I'm a very positive thinker, and I think that is what helps me the most in difficult moments."

- Roger Federer

"If my uniform doesn't get dirty, I haven't done anything in the baseball game."

- Rickey Henderson

"You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get."

- Michael Phelps

"The more desperate you are, the more mistakes you make."

- Canelo Alvarez

"The glory is being happy. The glory is not winning here or winning there. The glory is enjoying practicing, enjoy every day, enjoying to work hard, trying to be a better player than before."

- Rafael Nadal

"I want to score more goals; the main ambition is goals."

- Marcus Rashford

"Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory."

- Bill Russell

"When you're so consistent, people have to stand up and take notice. I don't think people recognise or praise consistency enough."

- Katie Taylor

"History is dependent on the new generation to write a new chapter."

- LaMelo Ball

"As long as you remain true to yourself and continue training with sincerity, nobody can stop you from achieving excellence."

- Milkha Singh

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color."

- Colin Kaepernick

"We must always set the bar high, otherwise we do not progress."

- Kylian Mbappe

"I don't think you're human if you don't get nervous."

- Sidney Crosby

"Hard work doesn't start during the game. Hard work starts the night before."

- Ken Griffey Jr.

"Don't let your dreams be dreams."

- Jack Johnson

"At the end of the day, we all want to win, so everybody has to sacrifice when you want to be a part of something special."

- Jayson Tatum

"For me, personally, when I'm afraid of something - when you're afraid of something, normally you try to go away, you try to avoid it. Instead of avoiding it, to overcome your fear, I believe you need to embrace it."

- Georges St-Pierre

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan

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

- Michael Jordan

"It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts."

- John Wooden

"Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We."

- Phil Jackson

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

- William Arthur Ward

"The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win."

- Kobe Bryant

"If something stands between you and your success, move it. Never be denied."

- Dwayne Johnson

"Don’t be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed."

- LeBron James

"You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits."

- Michael Phelps

"I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan

"If you persevere long enough, if you do the right things long enough, the right things will happen."

- Manon Rheaume

"The only person who can stop you from reaching your goals is you."

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"For me, winning isn't something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream."

- Jacques Plante

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover."

- Mark Twain

"Every champion was once a contender that didn’t give up."

- Gabby Douglas

"I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall."

- Serena Williams

"I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying."

- Michael Jordan

"I can only control my performance. If I do my best, then I can feel good at the end of the day."

- Michael Phelps

"You have to have the mentality of executing your game when you don't feel like there's a lot of hope. I think the best feeling is when somebody pushes you to the limit and you dig down a little bit extra. By the same token, you also need a little luck. Sometimes they come together."

- Ronnie Lott

"The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that’s where it’s at."

- Jesse Owens

"An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head."

- Gary Player

"Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard."

- Kevin Durant

"Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them; a desire, a dream, a vision."

- Muhammad Ali

"Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates."

- Tom Landry

"It doesn’t matter if you fall short; it is never a failure to go after your goals with everything you’ve got."

- Michael Phelps

"Don’t lose faith in your dreams, keep fighting for what you love, and if you always give everything you have, you’ll be happy no matter what the outcome."

- Lindsey Vonn

"Preparation is everything and focus is the key. It’s easy to say you gave it your all out on the pitch. But the point is if you’d prepared you’d have had more to give and you’ve played better."

- Eric Cantona

"If you train hard, you'll not only be hard, you'll be hard to beat."

- Tony Dorsett

"You don’t win by being good. You win with hard work and sacrifice. Without that, skill is just potential."

- Bobby Orr

"Dreams are free. Goals have a cost. While you can daydream for free, goals don’t come without a price. Time, Effort, Sacrifice, and Sweat. How will you pay for your goals?"

- Usain Bolt

"If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it."

- Jimmy Demaret

"People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear.’ I tell them, ‘No, that’s not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I’m a scared person.'"

- Ronda Rousey

"The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you."

- William Jennings Bryan

"Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have."

- Brian Tracy

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

- Steve Garvey

"The more I practice, the luckier I get."

- Ted Walsh

"You have to keep your goal in mind and never lose sight of it."

- George Foreman

"You play to win the game...Hello. You play to win the game."

- Harry Caray

"I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it."

- Mike Ditka

"When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win."

- Hank Aaron

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

- Marv Levy

"It’s not about motivation, it’s about connecting to what matters."

- Jonah Oliver

"Football doesn't build character, it reveals character!"

- Herschel Walker

"Pressure is a privilege."

- Virgil van Dijk

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

- Serena Williams

"You have good days, you have bad days. But the main thing is to grow mentally."

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

"Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t, pretend that you do and, at some point, you will."

"You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to win."

"You are NOT your thoughts."