John Wooden
American basketball coach, 1910-2010
99 quotes.
Quotes by John Wooden
- A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.
- A coach must never forget that he is a leader and not merely a person with authority.
- A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.
- A mistake is valuable if you do four things with it: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it
- A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player.
- A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself for the group, for the good of the group — that’s teamwork.
- A strong leader accepts blame and gives the credit. A weak leader gives blame and accepts the credit.
- Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- Adversity often produces an unexpected opportunity. Look for it! Appreciate and utilize it! This is difficult to do if you’re feeling sorry for yourself because you’re faced with adversity.
- All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.
- Apply yourself everyday to just becoming a little bit better.
- Are you going to make mistakes? Of course. But it is not failure if you make the full effort.
- Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
- Be observing constantly. Stay open-minded. Be eager to learn and improve.
- Be prepared and be honest.
- Be quick, but don’t hurry.
- Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating.
- Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
- Champions are brilliant at the basics.
- Champions never complain, they are too busy getting better.
- Confidence comes from being prepared.
- Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.
- Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort? That’s what matters. The rest of it just gets in the way.
- Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.
- Do not become too concerned about what others may think of you. Be very concerned about what you think of yourself.
- Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.
- 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.
- Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.
- Don't mistake activity with achievement.
- Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort. We are all imperfect and will fail on occasions, but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
- Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
- Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.
- Fairness is giving all people the treatment they earn and deserve. It doesn’t mean treating everyone alike.
- Five years from now, you’re the same person except for the people you’ve met and the books you’ve read.
- Give me 100 percent. You can’t make up for a poor effort today by giving 110 percent tomorrow. You don’t have 110 percent. You only have 100 percent, and that’s what I want from you right now.
- Great leaders are always out front with a banner, instead of behind with a whip.
- Great leaders know that listening to others is much more important than asserting their authority. Quiet your thoughts and listen to others with an open mind.
- Happiness begins where selfishness ends.
- If we fail to adapt, we fail to move forward.