Top 35 Branch Rickey Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Success is that place in the road where preparation meets opportunity.”

— Branch Rickey

2. “Luck is the residue of opportunity and design.”

— Branch Rickey

3. “Problems are the price you pay for progress.”

— Branch Rickey

4. “Don’t look at the hole in the doughnut. Look at the whole doughnut.”

— Branch Rickey

5. “It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.”

— Branch Rickey

6. “Never surrender opportunity to security.”

— Branch Rickey

7. “Man may penetrate the outer reaches of the universe, he may solve the very secret of eternity itself but for me, the ultimate human experience is to witness the flawless execution of the hit-and-run.”

— Branch Rickey

8. “If things don’t come easy, there is no premium on effort. There should be joy in the chase, zest in the pursuit.”

— Branch Rickey

9. “Baseball is a game of inches.”

— Branch Rickey

10. “Thou shalt not steal. I mean defensively. On offense, indeed thou shall steal and thou must.”

— Branch Rickey

11. “I don’t care if I was a ditch-digger at a dollar a day, I’d want to do my job better than the fellow next to me. I’d want to be the best at whatever I do.”

— Branch Rickey

12. “Worry is simply thinking the same thing over and over again and not doing anything about it.”

— Branch Rickey

13. “A full mind is an empty bat.”

— Branch Rickey

14. “Thinking about the devil is worse than seeing the devil.”

— Branch Rickey

15. “I was in the top ten percent of my law school class. I am a Doctor of Juris Prudence. I have an honorary Doctor of Laws. So, would somebody please tell me why I spent four mortal hours today conversing with a person named Dizzy Dean.”

— Branch Rickey

16. “Leisure is the handmaiden of the devil.”

— Branch Rickey

17. “Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.”

— Branch Rickey

18. “A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance.”

— Branch Rickey

19. “Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Luck is the residue of design.”

— Branch Rickey

20. “Trade a player a year too early rather than a year too late.”

— Branch Rickey

21. “The only thing Abner Doubleday ever started was the Civil War.”

— Branch Rickey

22. “The world’s not so simple anymore, I guess it never was. We ignored it, now we can’t.”

— Branch Rickey

23. “We win if the world is convinced of two things, that you are a fine gentleman, and a great baseball player.”

— Branch Rickey

24. “I cannot face my God much longer knowing that his black creatures are held separate and distinct from his white creatures in the game that has given me all that I can call my own.”

— Branch Rickey

25. “First of all, a man, whether seeking achievement on the athletic field or in business, must want to win. He must feel that the thing he is doing is worthwhile; so worthwhile that he is willing to pay the price of success to attain distinction.”

— Branch Rickey

26. “Branch Rickey made me a better man.”

— Branch Rickey

27. “Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms.”

— Branch Rickey

28. “Ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game.”

— Branch Rickey

29. “Don’t worry about your individual numbers. Worry about the team. If the team is successful, each of you will be successful, too.”

— Branch Rickey

30. “The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race.”

— Branch Rickey

31. “The man with the ball is responsible for what happens to the ball.”

— Branch Rickey

32. “I don’t like the subtle infiltration of ‘something for nothing’ philosophies into the very hearthstone of the American family. I believe that ‘Thou shalt earn the bread by the sweat of thy face’ was a benediction and not a penalty. Work is the zest of life; there is joy in its pursuit.”

— Branch Rickey

33. “I did not mind the public criticism. That sort of thing has not changed any program I thought was good.”

— Branch Rickey

34. “I am alarmed at the subtle invasion of professional football, which is gaining preeminence over baseball. It’s unthinkable.”

— Branch Rickey

35. “Leo Durocher is a man with an infinite capacity for making a bad thing worse.”

— Branch Rickey

36. “I find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places – uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me – I find fault.”

— Branch Rickey

37. “How to use your leisure time is the biggest problem of a ballplayer.”

— Branch Rickey

38. “He’s the best prospect I’ve ever seen.”

— Branch Rickey