Top 400 John Wooden Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “What you do in practice is going to determine your level of success. I used to tell my players, ‘You have to give 100 percent every day. Whatever you don’t give, you can’t make up for tomorrow. If you give only 75 percent today, you can’t give 125 percent tomorrow to make up for it.’”

— John Wooden

152. “Make a decision! Failure to act is often the biggest failure of all.”

— John Wooden

153. “Earn the right to be proud and confident.”

— John Wooden

154. “Make each day a masterpiece. Don’t think your best days are out there somewhere. Why not today? Why can’t today be a great day? It can if you believe it will.”

— John Wooden

155. “You must be interested in finding the best way, not in having your own way.”

— John Wooden

156. “Don’t think that you can make up for it by working twice as hard tomorrow. If you have it within your power to work twice as hard, why aren’t you doing it now?”

— John Wooden

157. “I am not as good as I ought to be. I am not as good as I want to be. I am not as good as I’m going to be. But I am thankful that I am better than I used to be.”

— John Wooden

158. “How you run the race – your planning, preparation, practice, and performance – counts for everything. Winning or losing is a by-product, and aftereffect, of that effort.”

— John Wooden

159. “Passion is momentary; love is enduring.”

— John Wooden

160. “A leader’s most powerful ally is his or her own example.”

— John Wooden

161. “The coach is first of all a teacher.”

— John Wooden

162. “Success is a personal matter – only you as an individual can tell if you did everything within your power to give your best effort.”

— John Wooden

163. “The courageous struggle for a noble cause should be considered success itself.”

— John Wooden

164. “Be prepared and be honest.”

— John Wooden

165. “A coach’s primary function should be not to make better players, but to make better people.”

— John Wooden

166. “You should never try to be better than someone else, you should always be learning from others. But you should never cease trying to be the best you could be because that’s under your control and the other isn’t.”

— John Wooden

167. “All change may not be progress, but all progress is the result of change.”

— John Wooden

168. “The greatest failure of all is the failure to act when action is needed.”

— John Wooden

169. “Loyalty is very important when things get a little tough, as they often do when the challenge is great. Loyalty is a powerful force in producing one’s individual best and more so in producing a team’s best.”

— John Wooden

170. “First, do not betray yourself. Second, do not betray those you lead.”

— John Wooden

171. “Be more concerned with what you can do for others than what others can do for you. You’ll be surprised at the results.”

— John Wooden

172. “Goals achieved with little effort are seldom worthwhile or lasting.”

— John Wooden

173. “Any structure must have a strong foundation. The cornerstones anchor the foundation. For some reason the cornerstones that I chose to begin with I never changed.”

— John Wooden

174. “Winning breeds winning.”

— John Wooden

175. “Love is the most powerful four letter word.”

— John Wooden

176. “Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.”

— John Wooden

177. “A Coach must never forget that he is a leader and not merely a person with authority.”

— John Wooden

178. “Drink deeply from good books.”

— John Wooden

179. “The best players don’t win championships. The best team players win championships.”

— John Wooden

180. “Never let your emotions overrule your head.”

— John Wooden

181. “You never fail if you know in your heart that you did the best of which you are capable. I did my best. That is all I could do. Are you going to make mistakes? Of course. But it is not failure if you make the full effort.”

— John Wooden

182. “There’s as much crookedness as you want to find. There was something Abraham Lincoln said – he’d rather trust and be disappointed than distrust and be miserable all the time. Maybe I trusted too much.”

— John Wooden

183. “Being your best when your best is needed. The ability to enjoy challenges when things become difficult and to derive exhilaration from them.”

— John Wooden

184. “I’ve been blessed in so many ways.”

— John Wooden

185. “The most important thing in the world is family and love.”

— John Wooden

186. “We can give without loving, but we can’t love without giving. In fact, love is nothing unless we give it to someone.”

— John Wooden

187. “All that matters is the pressure you put on yourself. External pressures cause people to choke. While you can’t control what happens to you, you can control how you react.”

— John Wooden

188. “Next to love, balance is the most important thing.”

— John Wooden

189. “I worry that business leaders are more interested in material gain than they are in having the patience to build up a strong organization, and a strong organization starts with caring for their people.”

— John Wooden

190. “I believe one of the requirements of good leadership is the ability to listen – really listen – to those in your organization. An effective leader is very good at listening, and it’s difficult to listen when you are talking.”

— John Wooden

191. “Every day, try to help someone who can’t reciprocate your kindness.”

— John Wooden

192. “Most people think of poise as calm, self-assured dignity; but I call it “just being you”.”

— John Wooden

193. “Make your “yes” mean yes, and your “no” mean no.”

— John Wooden

194. “Good judgment, common sense, and reason all fly out the window when emotions kick down your door.”

— John Wooden

195. “A gifted player, who is not a team player, will ultimately hurt the team.”

— John Wooden

196. “Nobody is defeated until he starts blaming somebody else. My advice to you is don’t fix the blame. Fix the problem.”

— John Wooden

197. “Let’s face it, we’re all imperfect and we’re going to fall short on occasion. But we must learn from failure and that will enable us to avoid repeating our mistakes. Through adversity, we learn, grow stronger, and become better people.”

— John Wooden

198. “A player who makes a team great is better than a great player.”

— John Wooden

199. “It is easier to reach our potential when we learn the value of including others in our quest.”

— John Wooden

200. “We must be challenged to improve, and adversity is the challenger.”

— John Wooden