Top 50 Hank Aaron Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.”

— Hank Aaron

Featured in: Sports Quotes, Quotes About Feelings

2. “Consistency is what counts; you have to be able to do things over and over again.”

— Hank Aaron

3. “Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.”

— Hank Aaron

4. “Failure is a part of success.”

— Hank Aaron

5. “In playing ball, and in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: being prepared to seize the moment and having the courage to take your best swing.”

— Hank Aaron

6. “I need to depend on Someone who is bigger, stronger and wiser than I am. I don’t do it on my own. God is my strength. He gave me a good body and some talent and the freedom to develop it. He helps me when things go wrong. He forgives me when I fall on my face. He lights the way.”

— Hank Aaron

7. “What you do with your life and how you do it is not only a reflection on you, but on your family and all of those institutions that have helped to make you who you are.”

— Hank Aaron

8. “I don’t want people to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember Henry Aaron.”

— Hank Aaron

9. “Failure will never stand int he way of success if you learn from it.”

— Hank Aaron

10. “You know what the hardest thing is? What nobody wants to understand – is me. People want their memories of me to be my memories of me. But you know what? They’re not.”

— Hank Aaron

11. “You got to play a hundred and fifty games a year, so pick your spots. You can miss two games a month; so pick the days you’re gonna be hurt, or you’re gonna rest or you’re gonna have a drink or two. The rest of the time, be on that field.”

— Hank Aaron

12. “You can only milk a cow so long, then you’re left holding the pail.”

— Hank Aaron

13. “I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you’re inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you’ve never seen before. If they do, I’m still looking for it.”

— Hank Aaron

14. “I had many, many, many death threats. I couldn’t open letters for a long time, because they all had to be opened by either the FBI or somebody.”

— Hank Aaron

15. “I had just turned 20, and Jackie told me the only way to be successful at anything was to go out and do it. He said baseball was a game you played every day, not once a week.”

— Hank Aaron

16. “There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life.”

— Hank Aaron

17. “It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.”

— Hank Aaron

18. “Didn’t come up here to read. Came up here to hit.”

— Hank Aaron

19. “I would like people not to think in terms of the 755 home runs I hit but think in terms of what I’ve accomplished off the field and some of the things I stood for.”

— Hank Aaron

20. “Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution.”

— Hank Aaron

21. “Last year, I was sort of a kid and I was a little scared, I ain’t scared any more.”

— Hank Aaron

22. “I think what separates a superstar from the average ballplayer is that he concentrates just a little bit longer.”

— Hank Aaron

23. “I’ve tried a lot of things in the off-season, but the only thing I really know is baseball.”

— Hank Aaron

24. “I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That’s when you’ve got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing’s a joke to me. I don’t feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.”

— Hank Aaron

25. “I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That’s when you’ve got to be serious.”

— Hank Aaron

26. “I think about how a guy mentally prepared himself to do battle, to go out and face the pitcher. I think so many hitters do not know how to get themselves prepared to play or hit against a pitcher. You have to mentally be prepared to hit against all pitchers.”

— Hank Aaron

27. “I don’t feel right unless I have a sport to play .”

— Hank Aaron

28. “The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.”

— Hank Aaron

29. “There’s only one way to break the color line. Be good. I mean, play good. Play so good that they can’t remember what color you were before the season started.”

— Hank Aaron

30. “There is no logical reason why girls shouldn’t play baseball. It’s not all that tough.”

— Hank Aaron

31. “Baseball needs me because it needs somebody to stir the pot, and I need it because it’s my life. It’s the means I have to make a little difference in the world.”

— Hank Aaron

32. “I never doubted my ability, but...”

— Hank Aaron

33. “Can I smoke now without someone taking my picture?”

— Hank Aaron

34. “Looking at the ball going over the fence isn’t going to help.”

— Hank Aaron

35. “Whatever we do, make sure we clean up baseball.”

— Hank Aaron

36. “The pitcher has got only a ball. I’ve got a bat. So the percentage in weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting.”

— Hank Aaron

37. “I don’t feel right unless I have a sport to play or at least a way to work up a sweat.”

— Hank Aaron

38. “I never thought home runs were all that exciting. I still think the triple is the most exciting thing in baseball. To me, a triple is like a guy taking the ball on his 1-yard line and running 99 yards for a touchdown.”

— Hank Aaron

39. “Roger Maris lost his hair the season he hit sixty-one, I still have all my hair, but when it’s over, I’m going home to Mobile and fish for a long time.”

— Hank Aaron

40. “I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn’t throw it past me, none of them.”

— Hank Aaron

41. “The first thing baseball wants to do is make you a superstar and then say that you owe baseball something. I don’t owe baseball anything. Baseball owes me.”

— Hank Aaron

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

42. “Making the majors is not as hard as staying there, staying interested day after day. It’s like being married. The hardest part is to stay married.”

— Hank Aaron

43. “I am very proud to be an American. This country has so much potential, I’d just like to see things better, or whatever, and I think it will be.”

— Hank Aaron

Featured in: Country Quotes

44. “I don’t see pitches down the middle anymore – not even in batting practice.”

— Hank Aaron

45. “I came to the Braves on business, and I intended to see that business was good as long as I could.”

— Hank Aaron

46. “If I knew exactly what I know now and had it to do over, I’d be a switch hitter. No telling what I could have done.”

— Hank Aaron

47. “The thing I like about baseball is that it’s one-on-one. You stand up there alone, and if you make a mistake, it’s your mistake. If you hit a home run, it’s your home run.”

— Hank Aaron

48. “I can’t recall a day this year or last when I did not hear the name of Babe Ruth.”

— Hank Aaron

49. “I’m sure glad this isn’t my home ball park.”

— Hank Aaron

50. “I never thought we’d ever have a black president. President Obama has done such a tremendous job He just has been unable to get what he needs to be moved at the level it should be moved.”

— Hank Aaron