Inspirational Team Quotes for Sports: A Powerful Collection to Motivate Your Team

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"

- Muhammad Ali

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

- Paul "Bear" Bryant

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

- Wayne Gretzky

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

- Phil Jackson

"I can't imagine anything more rewarding than striving for excellence and giving it your all."

- Michael Jordan

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

- Paul “Bear” Bryant

"There may be people that have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do."

- Derek Jeter

"A team isn't a bunch of kids out to win. A team is something you belong to, something you feel, something you have to earn."

- Gordon Bombay

"Dreams don't work unless you do."

- John C. Maxwell

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime."

- Babe Ruth

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."

- Zig Ziglar

"Teamwork gives you the best opportunity to turn vision into reality."

- John C Maxwell

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

- Michael Jordan

"If you want to be the best, you have to do things that other people aren't willing to do."

- Michael Phelps

"Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare."

- Patrick Lencioni

"Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability."

- Patrick Lencioni

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I've been successful."

- Michael Jordan

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

- Bobby Knight

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."

- Michael Jordan

"Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it."

- Lou Holtz

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"I think team first. It allows me to succeed, and it allows my team to succeed."

- Lebron James

"The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital."

- Joe Paterno

"One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team."

- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"You don't have to be better than everybody else, you just have to be better than you ever thought you could be."

- Ken Venturi

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

- Tim Notke

"There is no 'I' in team but there is in win."

- Michael Jordan

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

- Phil Jackson

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

- Christian D. Larson

"No individual can win a game by himself."

- Pele

"Individual commitment to a group effort — that’s what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

- Vince Lombardi

"If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team."

- Bud Wilkinson

"The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven."

- Knute Rockne

"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

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

- Michael Jordan

"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

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

- Michael Jordan

"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

"Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

- Vince Lombardi

"If you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."

- Michael Jordan

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

- Paul Bryant

"For a team to be motivated enough to win, each individual member must be motivated."

- Tom Landry

"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

"Everyone wants to win. But to truly succeed—whether it is at a sport or at your job or in life—you have to be willing to do the hard work, overcome the challenges, and make the sacrifices it takes to be the best at what you do."

- Ronda Rousey

"You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours."

- Herb Brooks

"Always work hard, never give up, and fight until the end because it’s never really over until the whistle blows."

- Alex Morgan

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it."

- Nelson Mandela

"It's not about winning, it's about the will to win."

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Mickey Mantle

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

- Vince Lombardi

"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

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

- Vince Lombardi

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."

- Robert Collier

"Gettin good players is easy. Gettin' 'em to play together is the hard part."

- Casey Stengel

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

- Javier Báez

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results."

- Andrew Carnegie

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

- Phil Jackson

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."

- Henry Ford

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself."

- Henry Ford

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Synergy – the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously."

- Mark Twain

"No man or woman is an island. To exist just for yourself is meaningless. You can achieve the most satisfaction when you feel related to some greater purpose in life, something greater than yourself."

- Denis Waitley

"It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed."

- Charles Darwin

"A hundred thousand men, coming one after another, cannot move a Ton weight; but the united strength of 50 would transport it with ease."

- George Washington

"Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life."

- Amy Poehler

"A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others."

- Norman Shidle

"Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people."

- Steve Jobs

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

- Steve Jobs

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going."

- Sam Levenson

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

- Vidal Sassoon

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it."

- Jordan Belfort

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Make each day your masterpiece."

- John Wooden

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

- Pele

"The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory."

- Les Brown

"It's not about perfect. It's about effort. And when you bring that effort every single day, that's where transformation happens."

- Jillian Michaels

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

- Gary Player

"If you aren't going all the way, why go at all?"

- Joe Namath

"Overpower. Overtake. Overcome."

- Serena Williams

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

- Muhammad Ali

"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

- Walter Bagehot

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

- Michael Phelps

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Success is not about the destination, but the journey."

- Zig Ziglar

"The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible."

- Charles Kingsleigh

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

- Archie Griffen

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

- Jessica Ennis-Hill

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."

- Jim Rohn

"You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you."

- Brian Tracy

"Don't be afraid to fail. Failure is a part of life. The next time you fail, ask yourself, 'What did I learn from that?' and move on."

- Richard Branson

"To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift."

- Steve Prefontaine

"Success is where preparation and opportunity meet."

- Bobby Unser

"The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare."

- Juma Ikangaa

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

- Bo Jackson

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

- Bobby Knight

"You can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"The only limits that exist are the ones you place on yourself."

- Dr. Wayne Dyer

"Somebody gives you an opportunity, say yes to it. So what if you fail? you won't know if you fail or succeed unless you try."

- Ann Meyers

"Don't be afraid of your fears. They're not there to scare you. They're there to let you know that something is worth it."

- C. JoyBell C

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

- Simone Biles

"The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence."

- Confucius

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

- Jessica Ennis-Hill

"Somebody gives you an opportunity, say yes to it. So what if you fail? you won’t know if you fail or succeed unless you try."

- Ann Meyers

"Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential."

- Liane Cardes

"What you feel doesn’t matter in the end; it’s what you do that makes you brave."

- Andre Agassi

"I believe in the impossible because no one else does."

- Florence Griffith Joyner

"My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having troubles off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging."

- Hank Aaron

"I’m chasing perfection… and if I don’t get it, I’m going to get this close."

- Kobe Bryant

"I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest."

- Venus Williams

"Dream as big as you can dream, and anything is possible."

- Michael Phelps

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

- Vince Lombardi

"The reward is not so great without the struggle…. The triumph can’t be had without the struggle."

- Wilma Rudolph

"Sometimes, a defeat can be more beautiful and satisfying than certain victories. The English have a point in insisting that it matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game."

- Arthur Ashe

"When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.’"

- Carol Dweck

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

- Tommy Lasorda

"Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement."

- Arnold Palmer

"I hated every minute of it [training]. But I said to myself, ‘Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion.’"

- Muhammad Ali

"If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail."

- Mark Spitz

"When you fall, get right back up. Just keep going, keep pushing it."

- Lindsey Vonn

"Individually, we are one drop. Together we are an ocean."

- Ryunosuke Satoro

"Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results."

- Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

"Teamwork. A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction."

- Justin Sewell

"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it."

- H.E. Luccock

"If you take out the team in teamwork, it’s just work. Now who wants that?"

- Matthew Woodring Stover

"None of us is as smart as all of us."

- Ken Blanchard

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

- Helen Keller

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

- Kevin Durant

"The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing."

- Michael Jordan

"Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people."

- John D. Rockefeller

"Success is not in what you have, but who you are."

- Bo Bennett

"Tough times don’t last, tough teams do."

- Robert Schuller

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

- Albert Pujols

"One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it."

- Knute Rockne

"None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful."

- Mother Teresa

"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking."

- William Butler Yeats

"Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It's the best part of the day."

- George Allen, Sr.

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

- Ken Doherty

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."

- Arnold H. Glasow

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

- Peter Drucker

"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."

- Jimmy Dean

"One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say that individuality counts but teamwork dynamites."

- Jin Kwon

"Work hard in silence, let your success be the noise."

- Frank Ocean

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Wayne Gretzky

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

- Ernie Banks

"It’s at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys."

- Emil Zatopek

"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

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

- Laird Hamilton

"The harder I work, the luckier I get."

- Gary Player

"You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them."

- Satchel Paige

"There is something about seeing myself improve that motivates and excites me."

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"You control your own wins and losses."

- Maria Sharapova

"It’s not about positive thinking it’s about taking positive action, no matter what you feel. There are no gold medals for the best positive self talk at the Olympics. Sport is a behaviour."

- Jonah Oliver

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

- Bruce Jenner

"You’re playing a game, whether it’s Little League or Game 7 of the World Series. It’s impossible to do well unless you’re having a good time. People talk about pressure. Yeah, there’s pressure. But I just look at it as fun."

- Derek Jeter

"The greatest pleasure is obtained by improving."

- Ben Hogan

"I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything."

- Michael Phelps

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

- John Wooden

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

- Michael Phelps

"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

"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

"The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first."

- Iyanla Vanzant

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be."

- Rosalynn Carter

"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

"Strategy is not a solo sport, even if you're the CEO."

- Max McKeown

"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

"Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them."

- T. Harv Eker

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

- Jonah Oliver

"It’s not about reducing pressure it’s about building the capacity to embrace more."

- Jonah Oliver

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

- William Arthur Ward

"Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful."

- Mark Victor Hansen

"Pressure is a privilege"

- Virgil van Dijk

"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

"There’s no way around hard work. Embrace it. You have to put in the hours because there is always something you can improve on"

- Roger Federer

"I was forced to learn a lot about psychology as a player, and as a captain to get the best out of others. There’s still a lot of scepticism about it in sport and the workplace, but dealing with fluctuations of form, and pressure, and being away from home is more important than your cover drive."

- Andrew Strauss

"One of the biggest errors we have made in elite sport is we use the word confident when we actually mean competent. I can’t sing. I am not competent at singing. Put six beers in me in a karaoke bar and now I’m confident … but I am still terrible at singing."

- Jonah Oliver

"You know what we worry about, things we care about. I didn’t get nervous making breakfast this morning."

- Jonah Oliver

"We have this thing in our mind of I gotta feel perfect, calm and confident and THEN I’ll perform well. Mate, if that’s the case you’re going to perform well a very, very small portion of the time."

- Peter Clarke

"Don’t get bitter, get better"

- Tiger Woods

"Comfort the challenged, and challenge the comfortable"

- Ric Charlesworth

"You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realised how seldom they do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"I just knew if it could be done, it had to be done, and I did it."

- Gertrude Ederle

"Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you."

- Mary Lou Retton

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

- Brian Tracy

"They don’t hand out winner’s medals to those who were feeling the best on the day, nor to those who were thinking clearly and positively. The medals only go to those who did the best."

- Gareth J. Mole

"I got more bruises, grass-burns and cuts in practice than in match play."

- Jonty Rhodes

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

- Ken Doherty

"Listen to everyone because even an idiot will have a good idea once or twice in their life. Then evaluate and pick out what works for you and commit to it."

- James Kneller

"Competition is an ordinary performance on a special day."

- Jonah Oliver

"Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence."

- George F. Will

"Even while they teach, men learn."

- Seneca the Younger

"It’s not who’s put up the fastest time in the world that year, or who’s put up the fastest time in the previous four years, but who can get their hand on the wall first today."

- Nathan Adrian

"Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts."

- Dan Gable

"No judgment of your practice, just practice."

- Gary Olson

"Multitasking is seriously overrated. Try to do one task at a time and learn to do it with more purpose."

- Gareth J. Mole

"Our brain craves reducing uncertainty. Uncertainty is the hardest human emotion."

- Jonah Oliver

"Self-talk is overrated. Don’t think about doing it … just do it"

- Gary Olson

"Don't stop when you're tired, stop when you're done."

- David Goggins

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

"Pressure is something you feel when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing."

"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."

"Your potential is endless. Go do what you were created to do."

"Believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable."

"The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday."

"Success is not just about winning; it's about the lessons learned through the journey."

"Your dreams don't have an expiration date. Take a deep breath and try again."

"You don't have to be extraordinary to be successful; you just have to be consistent."

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

"Never give up on your dreams. If you do, you'll end up with nothing."

"Your attitude determines your direction."

"The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow."

"Your only limit is you."

- Unknown

"It's not about being the best. It's about being better than you were yesterday."

"It's not about how many times you fall down, it's about how many times you get back up."

"Don't run away from challenges. Run over them."

"Great things never come from comfort zones."

"The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle."