John Wooden Quotes

We don’t have to be superstars or win championships…. All we have to do is learn to rise to every occasion, give our best effort, and make those around us better as we do it.

Make sure that team members know they are working with you, not for you.

Every day, try to help someone who can't reciprocate your kindness.

Doing the best you are capable of doing is victory in itself, and less than that is defeat.

How hard you work at correcting your faults reveals your character.

Players with fight never lose a game, they just run out of time

You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.

Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.

Don't let making a living prevent you from making a life.

You must be interested in finding the best way, not in having your own way.

Flexibility is the key to stability.

Make each day a masterpiece. Don't think your best days are out there somewhere. Why not today? Why can't today be a great day? It can if you believe it will.

Good things take time, as they should. We shouldn't expect good things to happen overnight. Actually, getting something too easily or too soon can cheapen the outcome.

Never try to be better than somebody else. But most importantly, never cease trying to be the best you can be.

The team is the star, never an individual player.

Happiness begins where selfishness ends.

If you do enough small things right, big things can happen

Don't whine, complain, or make excuses.

When opportunity comes it is too late to prepare.

Don't get discouraged: it is often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock. Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

Build shelter against a rainy day.

Don't mistake activity with achievement.

Don't think that you can make up for it by working twice as hard tomorrow. If you have it within your power to work twice as hard, why aren't you doing it now?

How you run the race - your planning, preparation, practice, and performance - counts for everything. Winning or losing is a by-product, and aftereffect, of that effort.

Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings everyday.

The eight laws of learning are explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.

The time to prepare isn't after you have been given the opportunity. It's long before that opportunity arises. Once the opportunity arrives, it's too late to prepare.

Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.

Be prepared and be honest.

Five years from now, you’re the same person except for the people you’ve met and the books you’ve read.

It's not how big you are, it's how big you play.

Surround yourself with people strong enough to change your mind.

Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating

Remember this, the choices you make in life, make you.

No one is an overachiever. How can you rise above your level of competency? Everyone is an underachiever to different degrees. The harder you work, the more luck you will have.

A player who makes a team great is better than a great player.

Never try to be better than someone else. Learn from others.

Your energy and enjoyment, drive and dedication will stimulate and greatly inspire others.

We can give without loving, but we can't love without giving. In fact, love is nothing unless we give it to someone.

Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.

You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes

Today is the only day. Yesterday is gone.

Nobody is a real loser-until they start blaming somebody else.

Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required each day.

It is easier to reach our potential when we learn the value of including others in our quest.

The greatest failure of all is the failure to act when action is needed

Although there is no progress without change, not all change is progress.

Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at time. That's the only way it happens-and when it happens, it lasts.

What is right is more important than who is right.

The most important thing in the world is family and love.