Top 100 Sports Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 100 of the best sports quotes ever written, picked out of the full sports archive on QuoteForever. You will find Billie Jean King, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bo Jackson and Bobby Knight among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

2

Once you start carrying your own suitcase, paying your own bills, running your own show, you've done something to yourself that makes you one of those women men like to call 'a pal' and 'a good sport,' the kind of woman they tell their troubles to. But you've cut yourself off from the orchids and the diamond bracelets, except those you buy yourself.

3

He that can have patience can have what he will.

4

Sport is not about being wrapped up in cotton wool. Sport as about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Sport, like all life, is about taking risks.

5

The stats win nothing. I'm still sexy. I'm still great.

6

Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.

7

My parents didn't really understand too much about sport. At that time, we were in a Polish community in the inner city of Chicago, and I was the youngest of a bunch of cousins. Polish families are real big, with cousins and aunts and uncles.

8

My uncle played rugby, and my dad played football, and they used to argue which game was the roughest - and everybody agreed rugby was. It's a great team sport, and to be successful, every person has to play in the same level.

9

You learn you can do your best even when its hard, even when you're tired and maybe hurting a little bit. It feels good to show some courage.

10

Hard work alone won't guarantee success, but without hard work, I'll guarantee you won't have success.

11

It's the attitude of the players, not their skills, that is the biggest factor in determining whether you win or lose.

12

I was fortunate to start the sport at a young age. I was 6 years old when my dad started teaching me. We started playing tournaments together when I was 11, in the lower ranking of beach volleyball in California. We weren't playing against kids; we played against grown men, so immediately, I had to raise my game to compete.

13

I watch a lot of sport on television. I only watch certain sports, and I only watch them live - I don't think I've ever been able to watch a replay of a match or game of which the result was already decided. I feel bound to cheat and look up what can be looked up.

14

It's a special honor to be one of the leaders of this football team. But I said it once, I'll say it again, no one person wins a game by themselves. Individually, it's top of the mountain, my sport, my profession. It's what you dream about as a kid.

15

I've always envied the kind of coach who could go completely out of his mind and nobody would know the difference.

16

Surfing is like that. You are either vigorously cursing or else you are idiotically pleased with yourself.

17

You've got to get good habits of working hard so that when that play comes up during the regular season that you're able to complete it and do it the right way.

18

I was very, very shocked about Cooperstown. I thought my chances were fairly good, but I tried to stay low key about it, not too high and not too low. That was the way I played, too.

19

I'm delighted about the track's success in the sports world, but the frustrating thing is, I don't think I got rich on it. The labels and publishers did very cheap deals on our songs.

20

It's an individual sport (golf), so it's the exact opposite of baseball. If you hit a bad shot, you can't say, 'Well, this happened.' It's just you. It's your shot. You can't point the finger at anybody but yourself.

21

A sport, a struggle for results and a fight for prizes. I think that the discussion about "chess is science or chess is art" is already inappropriate. The purpose of modern chess is to reach a result.

22

I actually love pressure. I loved playing sport at school in front of a crowd; I love being on stage in front of a big audience. I buzz off that.

23

Every sport pretends to a literature, but people don't believe it of any other sport but their own.

24

I think it's very important, even if you're not in organized sports, but just to be active, to be healthy.

25

When you start off a new tournament, you want to do well.

26

Whether it's in the right way or sometimes the wrong way, you learn about life and its lessons.

27

Big mountains are a completely different world: snow, ice, rocks, sky, and thin air. You cannot conquer them, only rise to their height for a short time; and for that they demand a great deal. The struggle is not with the enemy, or a competitor like in sports, but with yourself, with the feelings of weakness and inadequacy. That struggle appeals to me. It is why I became a mountaineer.

28

I started in this sport at 12 years of age and the goals I set was to be among the best and be the world champion.

29

Now that I've won a slam, I know something very few people on earth are permitted to know. A win doesn't feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn't last long as the bad. Not even close.

30

You know my dad pushed me to believe that I was going to be the best. I just never thought of life without tennis, even looking forward.

31

I want my legacy to be that I was a man of character, I was a God fearing man and somebody who bettered the sport in terms of the way I represented the sport. But also that fact that I was a fierce competitor and fought the best in the world and was able to come out on top, so if those things could be said about me, then I look at it as a job well done.

32

It's one thing to have an eye for the sport, and it's another to have a feel for the sport. He has both.

33

You can never meet everyone's expectations. It's hard enough to meet your own.

34

I was struggling at Rookie Camp to be quite honest with you. Basically, it was a week of being locked down like in jail for me. I would say about 50 percent of it was useful. The most challenging part of it was off the court. I mean, man we were just sitting there at times. We had meetings from about 10 a.m. in the morning to about 10 at night and you can't get a workout in at all.

35

If tomorrow we decided only to desist from killing and causing suffering for sport and entertainment, the world would be significantly better for animals. Even this we have failed to achieve.

36

The 1992 US Olympic basketball team is the best sports team ever, the equivalent of rounding up the greatest American writers of the last century or so and watching them collaborate: 'OK, Twain, you do the dialogue and hand off to Faulkner. He'll do the interior monologue. Hemingway will edit - no, don't make that face, you know you overwrite. And be nice to Cheever. He's young, but he's got a good ear. Wharton and Cather can't play - they're girls.'

37

Winning does not always mean coming in first...real victory is in arriving at the finish line with no regrets because you know you've gone all out.

38

If it wasn't for my sport and my father, I'd probably be a fallen statistic. I'd be dead; I'd be in jail. Luckily, I had a great dad in my life.

39

My definition of a sport is that it's a physical activity that involves competition. Since bodybuilders certainly train and then compete, we are certainly a sport.

40

There are bodybuilders who are afraid of indulging in sex or even of playing other sports for fear of harming their bodies. I think that's silly. What's the use of building your body if you don't use it?

41

It's not what you get out of life that counts. Break your mirrors! In our society that is so self-absorbed, begin to look less at yourself and more at each other. you'll get more satisfaction from having improved your neighborhood, your town, your state, your country, and your fellow human beings than you'll ever get from your muscles, your figure, your automobile, your house, or your credit rating.

42

The beauty of a move lies not in its appearance but in the thought behind it.

43

Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis.

44

A-Rod wants to be like Babe Ruth. And people don't realize this, he's a lot like Babe Ruth. Before the playoffs a couple of years ago, A-Rod went to the hospital and promised a dying kid he'd ground out to second for him.

45

It's hard to beat a person that never gives up.

46

These 'Sports Illustrated' people, they know how to hold a secret.

47

It's the quintessential Greek sport: harmonious, competitive, agonizing, nautical, and above all, intelligent. It combines Odysseus's brains and brawn and love of the sea with the tactical precision of the Spartan pikeman.

48

I still love what I do and I've done OK over the years ... You're a long time retired and anyway, I'd get bored.

49

All I know is, I don't want to stop coaching, and I don't want to stop winning, so we're gonna break the record unless I die.

50

You learn to accept defeat graciously in golf. Unlike other sports, the game itself is a constant opponent. It never stops. A golfer is fortunate to win a few times. We spend our whole lives trying to conquer something, and we lose a lot more than we win.

51

The concussion crisis has changed the face of sports as we know it and it has brought to surface the incredible importance of our brain health. The time is now for us to make our brain the number one priority so that education and awareness can take effect, and begin to change the way we approach the health of our athletes from youth to professionals.

52

I think having a vision can make someone an influential man. I'm not talking about acting or anything like that, I'm talking about people I admire, whether it's a writer or a musician or a sports figure or a politician, whatever.

53

If you want a thing done - go. If not - send.

54

The NBA has a voice that's why they have a lockout. The NFL has a voice that's why they had a lockout. Boxing is the only sport that's individually represented the individual people - Managers, Promoters and Boxers.

55

Running is perhaps the most fundamental of all sports, and it is economically the least costly to perform. As a consequence, it is the most democratic and most competitive of all sports because individual merit can prevail despite economic equality. It is a sport for everyone, the whole world over.

56

There are far more important things in life than making a putt or missing a putt or winning a championship or losing a championship.

57

But when I play, I still practice hard and focus on my game.

58

To implement a new sport aside your tradition takes time. You definitely need a strategy for the entire country. You need highly qualified coaches for all regions that work with the same concept.

59

I love the ocean, and I love surfing. It's something so special and unique, and surfing is unlike any other sport. Skateboarding is amazing, you get the adrenaline rush, but you don't get the feel of the ocean, of doing its own thing. Totally surrounding you. Definitely a unique thing, it's a blessing, and a huge part of my healing process I would say.

60

I am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.

61

Guys you have way too much invested in sport. Guys you are not the tenth man. You're a machine for turning beer into piss that's what you are!

62

Some guys are just very, very interested in their sport and their predecessors. I know I was a guy like that when I was a young coach. I wanted to know about George Halas, I wanted to know about Jim Lee Howell, guys you don't even know. I wanted to know what they were like. So I read whatever I could get my hands on.

63

I only want my team to play to its potential, as I perceive it to be. I really don't have any regard for anyone else's perception.

64

I never drop a player I only make changes.

65

Players win games, teams win championships.

66

Tennis is more than just a sport. It's an art, like the ballet. Or like a performance in the theater. When I step on the court I feel like Anna Pavlova. Or like Adelina Patti. Or even like Sarah Bernhardt. I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It's the crisis of my life.

67

Women's sports is still in its infancy. The beginning of women's sports in the United States started in 1972, with the passage of Title 9 for girls to finally get athletic scholarships.

68

Sports are a microcosm of society. It just shows how much more competition there is in the world.

69

It's really impossible for athletes to grow up. On the one hand, you're still a child, still playing a game. But on the other hand, you're a superhuman hero that everyone dreams of being. No wonder we have such a hard time understanding who we are.

70

I always liked co-ed events best so we have two men and two women on each team.

71

I would love to be a player today. I had the right personality for it.

72

Female athletes are stereotyped by the general population--and usually as homosexuals.

73

Golfers are the greatest worriers in the world of sport.

74

When is a revival needed? When carelessness and unconcern keep the people asleep.

75

So, baseball is probably more physical of the two mentally.

76

But now in this day and age, people are more prone to go out to try new things to enhance their performance on the field - to enhance their physical appearance.

77

I was a pitcher, shortstop and outfielder, and the Yankees tried to sign me out of high school as a first-round draft pick in 1981. I turned them down to go to college.

78

There are some times when sports rises to the level of news and when sports broadcasters acquit themselves as well as the best news broadcasters do, they aren't there to dramatize. They're there as journalists.

79

Yes folks, their gold medal looks the same as everybody elses.

80

I don't think baseball owes colored people anything. I don't think colored people owe baseball anything, either.

81

It may sound strange, but many champions are made champions by setback. They are champions because they've been hurt. Their experience moved them, and they pulled out this fighting spirit, making them what they are. Sometimes in life, God gives us a difficulty in order to bring out the fighting spirit. Everything that happens to you can happen for good if you have this spirit. The essential thing in life is not in the conquering, but in the fight.

82

Strive for perfection - never be content with mediocrity. You don't win until you conquer the little flaws. You don't beat these great ones until your form is perfect. This is true in all of life. A flaw in a product can ruin a business. A personal failing, a little one, can ruin a person's life. Don't be content with mediocrity - strive to live up to the greatest within you.

83

American politics used to be an amateur sport. But somewhere along the way, we handed over to professionals all the things people used to do for free.

84

A police reporter walks into the worst moment in someone's life on every single story that he covers. It's not like being a sports reporter. That's a great job and all that and takes certain skills. But, you know, they're glad to see you when you show up to cover the football game. Nobody is ever glad to see a police reporter when he shows up.

85

Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products.

86

Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.

87

I'm not afraid to swing the bat. If they elect to pitch to me, I'm going to swing. I'm not as picky as Mr. Sheffield. I'll swing at something over my head.

88

Don't go to the grave with life unused.

89

Always keep your composure. You can't score from the penalty box; and to win, you have to score.

90

It has always been my thought that the most important single ingredient to success in athletics or life is discipline. I have many times felt that this word is the most ill-defined in all of our language. My definition isas follows: 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it it that way all the time.

91

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.

92

I think the ability to motivate might be interpreted as the ability to lead, or to show people their goals or, perhaps more important, what their potential is - as a person as well as a player. You've got to show players that being part of a team will carry over to the experience of becoming part of society.

93

When you back off, it's easier to do mistakes. For me it's better to ski fast.

94

Once the season starts for me, there isn't a change in my focus, just a change in my tactics and strategies.

95

I'm definitely going to miss hearing the sound of that gun.

96

And that's why, you know, it's players like Randy Moss that unfortunately put a stain on the entire league.

97

I know for a stretch, at least nine years, I was one of the best lead-off hitters in baseball

98

After the '96 Olympics, we all started believing that this is bigger than we thought, and we were willing to do the work. We knew that it was up to us, the players, to make soccer successful.

99

Well there are two things: Number one is, make sure you always enjoy yourself, because when you enjoy yourself, you'll learn, you'll want more information, you'll push yourself.

100

I was the kid who always liked to take the ball down to the school even in my free time, kick it against the wall, juggle it in the front yard and so it was kind of a perpetual state of playing soccer for me.

More Sports quotes

This is the short list. The full sports quotes collection holds every quote on the subject in the archive, and the picture quotes are ready to share as images.

Share This Page