Top 35 Bill Russell Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process. There is no luck involved.”

— Bill Russell

Featured in: Consistency Quotes, Basketball Quotes

2. “Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.”

— Bill Russell

Featured in: Mental Strength Quotes, Gym Motivation Quotes, Basketball Quotes

3. “You can do anything you want to do if you want it bad enough.”

— Bill Russell

4. “Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission. I truly believe in the saying “We work to become, not to acquire.””

— Bill Russell

5. “To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, to love someone who loves you is everything.”

— Bill Russell

6. “The magic to a great meeting is all of the work that’s done beforehand.”

— Bill Russell

7. “The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.”

— Bill Russell

8. “Commitment separates those who live their dreams from those who live their lives regretting the opportunities they have squandered.”

— Bill Russell

9. “If a guy pays you five dollars, you give him seven dollars worth of work.”

— Bill Russell

10. “The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.”

— Bill Russell

11. “We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us – anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.”

— Bill Russell

12. “The only important statistic is the final score.”

— Bill Russell

13. “You got to have the killer instinct. If you do not have it, forget about basketball and go into social psychology or something. If you sometimes wonder if you’ve got it, you ain’t got it. No pussycats, please.”

— Bill Russell

14. “Friendship is a full-time job.”

— Bill Russell

15. “My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.”

— Bill Russell

16. “Remember that basketball is a game of habits. If you make the other guy deviate from his habits, you’ve got him.”

— Bill Russell

17. “The most important thing to me is the friends that I’ve made.”

— Bill Russell

18. “If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach, then what you’re doing becomes art.”

— Bill Russell

19. “What’s more important than who’s going to be the first black manager is who’s going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.”

— Bill Russell

20. “Create unselfishness as the most important team attribute.”

— Bill Russell

21. “If you really have integrity, there are very few people who can insult you, or honor you.”

— Bill Russell

22. “Heart in champions has to do with the depth of our motivation and how well your mind and body react to pressure – that is, being able to do what you do best under maximum pain and stress.”

— Bill Russell

23. “Don’t knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands!”

— Bill Russell

24. “Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them.”

— Bill Russell

25. “If Shakespeare can compare all of life to a stage, maybe it’s not odd to believe that part of the play can take place on a basketball court.”

— Bill Russell

26. “Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.”

— Bill Russell

27. “What distinguishes a great player is his presence. When he goes on to the court, his presence dominates the atmosphere.”

— Bill Russell

28. “I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with a lot of really smart people. The thing that strikes me most about them is how they continue to explore and learn every day. I have tried to apply that approach in my modest career as well.”

— Bill Russell

29. “I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.”

— Bill Russell

30. “The last five or six days, I’ve been running. The last two days, I’ve been running pretty hard. Everybody’s got to be someplace.”

— Bill Russell

31. “The morale and the camaraderie that we had for one another earlier in the year is starting to come under duress because of all the losses. Some of the guys are feeling the pressure now from the last year when they were not successful.”

— Bill Russell

32. “I think that David Stern is probably the greatest commissioner that any sport has ever had in the history of this country.”

— Bill Russell

33. “We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.”

— Bill Russell

34. “We couldn’t sustain it. And they got a lot of kids that can shoot. We just couldn’t close out well enough.”

— Bill Russell

35. “Show me a man, any man, he is my brother. Show me a bigot, any bigot, he is my enemy.”

— Bill Russell