Top 35 Joe Paterno Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”

— Joe Paterno

2. “Today, you’ve got a decision to make. You’re gonna get better or you’re gonna get worse, but you’re not gonna stay the same. Which will it be?”

— Joe Paterno

3. “When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.”

— Joe Paterno

4. “Believe deep down in your heart that you’re destined to do great things.”

— Joe Paterno

5. “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.”

— Joe Paterno

6. “Success is best measured by the achiever.”

— Joe Paterno

7. “Its the name on the front of the jersey that matters most, not the one on the back.”

— Joe Paterno

8. “Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won’t taste good.”

— Joe Paterno

9. “Failure is not getting beat. Failure is when you don’t do a good job preparing.”

— Joe Paterno

10. “In hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

— Joe Paterno

11. “Success and excellence are not the same. Excellence grows within a person, is largely within that person’s control, and its meaning lasts. Success is measured externally, by comparison to others, is often outside our control, and is perishable.”

— Joe Paterno

12. “Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.”

— Joe Paterno

13. “You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.”

— Joe Paterno

14. “Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.”

— Joe Paterno

15. “The minute you think you’ve got it made, disaster is just around the corner.”

— Joe Paterno

16. “What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.”

— Joe Paterno

17. “You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.”

— Joe Paterno

18. “We need people who influence their peers and who cannot be detoured from their convictions by peers who do not have the courage to have any convictions.”

— Joe Paterno

19. “You can’t have a great university without a great library.”

— Joe Paterno

20. “I still haven’t gotten that little something out of my system that I’m still not a kid going to a football game. I’m excited.”

— Joe Paterno

21. “My name, I have spent my whole life trying to make that name mean something. And now it’s gone.”

— Joe Paterno

22. “We play with enthusiasm and recklessness. We aren’t afraid to lose. If we win, great; but win or lose, it is the competition that gives us pleasure.”

— Joe Paterno

23. “Publicity is like poison; it doesn’t hurt unless you swallow it.”

— Joe Paterno

24. “They ask me what I’d like written about me when I’m gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach.”

— Joe Paterno

25. “I stayed on the track I wanted to stay on. I don’t think I deviated from what I’m all about and what I thought was important. Whether you want to call that a legacy, or whatever you want to call it.”

— Joe Paterno

26. “My father said about money: ‘You have to have some. But you don’t have to have all of it. Just be honest with yourself.’”

— Joe Paterno

27. “What is a coach? We are teachers. Educators. We have the same obligations as all teachers, except we probably have more influence than anybody but their families. And, in a lot of cases, more than their families.”

— Joe Paterno

28. “Don’t just stand back and play the way you’re coached. A great player must rise to the occasion and turn the game around on his own.”

— Joe Paterno

29. “When a kid plays football before he attends a class, something is wrong.”

— Joe Paterno

30. “Right now I’m trying to figure out what I’m gonna do, ’cause I don’t want to sit around on my backside all day. If I’m gonna do that I’ll be a newspaper reporter.”

— Joe Paterno

31. “Some things I thought were important for a young man to know.”

— Joe Paterno

32. “Connfidence, excellence becomes a reality.”

— Joe Paterno

33. “There’s never been a greater game than football.”

— Joe Paterno

34. “If I had to do it over again, I’d probably play the game the same way.”

— Joe Paterno

35. “I had a great bunch of kids. They all hung with us. The coaching staff hung with us. And we played tough every game. If you’ve got kids that want to play and react to you, it’s fun. I’m having a good time.”

— Joe Paterno

36. “All coaches are thinking men, or else they wouldn’t survive.”

— Joe Paterno

37. “You must relate athletic experiences to life.”

— Joe Paterno

38. “There has to be some self-denial.”

— Joe Paterno

39. “Everybody likes to win. It sure beats the devil out of losing.”

— Joe Paterno