100 Inspirational Quotes Every Young Athlete Should Hear

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

- Vince Lombardi

"It does not matter how many times you get knocked down. What matters is how many times you get up."

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Michael Jordan

"I failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan

"If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you’ll never change the outcome."

- Michael Jordan

"Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there."

- John Wooden

"Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."

- Muhammad Ali

"Don't count the days, make the days count."

- Muhammad Ali

"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

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."

- Zig Ziglar

"It’s not how big you are but how big you play."

- John Wooden

"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."

- Marv Levy

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

- Arthur Ashe

"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

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

- Babe Ruth

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

- William Arthur Ward

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

- Robert Schuller

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

- Vince Lombardi

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."

- Henry Ford

"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

"You don't inspire people by showing how powerful you are. You inspire people by showing how powerful they are."

- Alexander Den Heijer

"Talent is never enough. With few exceptions, the best players are the hardest workers"

- Magic Johnson

"Victory is in the quality of competition and not the final score."

- Mike Marshall

"The best motivation always comes from within."

- Michael Johnson

"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

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

- Babe Didrikson Zaharias

"If you want to find the real competition, just look in the mirror. After awhile you'll see your rivals scrambling for second place."

- Criss Jami

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

- Tony Dorsett

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

- Maya Angelou

"I will keep smiling, be positive and never give up! I will give 100 percent each time I play. These are always my goals and my attitude."

- Yani Tseng

"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean."

- Christopher Reeve

"You will face your greatest opposition when you are closest to your biggest miracle."

- Shannon L. Alder

"A year from now you may wish you had started today."

- Karen Lamb

"Don't wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it."

- Cathy Hopkins

"Well done is better than well said."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail"

- Roy Keane

"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

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

- Mickey Mantle

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

- Lou Holtz

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

- Wayne Gretzky

"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

"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

"Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment."

- Heywood Hale Broun

"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

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

- Alex Karras

"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

"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

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

- Lynn Jennings

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

- Herschel Walker

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

- William Ward

"Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done the best way it can be done, and do it that way every time."

- Bob Knight

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

- Knute Rockne

"Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time."

- Lou Brock

"You have to remember that the hard days are what make you stronger. The bad days make you realize what a good day is. If you never had any bad days, you would never have that sense of accomplishment."

- Aly Raisman

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

- Michael Phelps

"Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you."

- Bethany Hamilton

"It doesn’t matter what your background is or where you came from. If you have dreams and goals, that’s all that matters."

- Serena Williams

"Surround yourself with good people. People who are going to be honest with you and look out for your best interests."

- Derek Jeter

"Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game."

- Michael Jordan

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

- John Wooden

"Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character."

- John Wooden

"The best competition I have is against myself to become better."

- John Wooden

"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

"A winner is a person that gets up one more time than she is knocked down."

- Mia Hamm

"I am building a fire, and every day I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match."

- Mia Hamm

"The highest compliment that you can pay me is that I work hard every day, that I never dog it."

- Wayne Gretzky

"It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

"No matter how good you get you can always get better, and that's the exciting part."

- Tiger Woods

"Set your goals high, and don’t stop until you get there."

- Bo Jackson

"If you don't have confidence, you'll always find a way not to win."

- Carl Lewis

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it's digging deep, it's doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms."

- Tom Brady

"Sport teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose - it teaches you about life."

- Billie Jean King

"You can't win if you don't play as a unit."

- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better."

- Pat Riley

"I am not a perfectionist, but I like to feel that things are done well. More important than that, I feel an endless need to learn, to improve, to evolve, not only to please the coach and the fans, but also to feel satisfied with myself. It is my conviction that there are no limits to learning, and that it can never stop, no matter what our age."

- Christiano Ronaldo

"May you always remember to enjoy the road, especially when it’s a hard one."

- Kobe Bryant

"The measure of who we are is how we react if something doesn’t go our way."

- Usain Bolt

"To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless."

- Mike Krzyzewski

"You can’t control what people say about you and what they think about you. You can’t plan for bad luck. You can only work your hardest and do your best and tell the truth. In the end, it’s the effort that matters. The rest is beyond your control."

- Maria Sharapova

"Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength."

- Phil Jackson

"Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy."

- Wayne Gretzky

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."

- Albert Einstein

"Ain’t no chance, if you don’t take it."

- Guy Clark

"The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest  of these is spirit."

- Ken Doherty

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."

- Mother Teresa

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

- Jackie Joyner Kersee

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

- Vernon Sanders Law

"To begin, begin."

- Peter Nivio Zarlenga

"The cautious seldom err."

- Confucius

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

- Alexander Pope

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

- Donald Trump

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

- Tim Notke

"The wishbone will never replace the backbone."

"There is no ‘I’ in team"

"Success is dependent upon effort."