Top 50 Rick Pitino Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Never let anyone out work you or out hustle you. Ever.”

— Rick Pitino

Featured in: Dedication Quotes, Competition Quotes, Quotes About Work, Keep Going Quotes, Gym Motivation Quotes

2. “Make incremental progress, change comes not by the yard, but by the inch.”

— Rick Pitino

3. “Success is determined by your daily choices and habits.”

— Rick Pitino

4. “Long term success is a direct result of what you achieve everyday. Goals provide your daily routine.”

— Rick Pitino

5. “Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.”

— Rick Pitino

6. “Set higher standards for your own performance than anyone else around you, and your only competition will be with yourself.”

— Rick Pitino

7. “Avoid cynical and negative people like the plague. They are killers of potential.”

— Rick Pitino

8. “Learning what not to do is sometimes more important than learning what to do.”

— Rick Pitino

9. “Postponing action is only postponing achievement.”

— Rick Pitino

10. “Working hard is not always fun – that’s why it is called work.”

— Rick Pitino

11. “Live in the precious present.”

— Rick Pitino

12. “Ego is the greatest killer of one’s potential.”

— Rick Pitino

13. “Learning to live in the present tense-one that’s free from the failures of the past and the anxieties of the future-is a wonderful gift, and one you always should be striving for.”

— Rick Pitino

14. “Lying makes a problem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past.”

— Rick Pitino

15. “Those who work the hardest are the last to surrender.”

— Rick Pitino

16. “When you build bridges you can keep crossing them.”

— Rick Pitino

17. “When you have a problem, if you tell the truth, the problem becomes part of your past. If you lie, it becomes part of your future.”

— Rick Pitino

18. “When it comes to team dynamics – on a basketball court or in a corporate setting – maintaining a positive atmosphere is crucial.”

— Rick Pitino

19. “If you are not willing to work hard and establish discipline in your life, then all your dreams are merely pipe dreams.”

— Rick Pitino

20. “Tackle the difficult things first in the morning; make changes in the way you network. Treat everyone with respect and dignity. This stops you from cynicism and negativity. End your day with that same attitude you started. Renew your contract with a day well completed.”

— Rick Pitino

21. “People with high self esteem are risk takers, but more importantly, they are achievers.”

— Rick Pitino

22. “Failure is good. It’s fertilizer. Everything I’ve learned about coaching I’ve learned from making mistakes.”

— Rick Pitino

23. “True motivation is not getting people to play to their potential. It’s getting people to play beyond their potential.”

— Rick Pitino

24. “The key to coaching is not what you do, but the way you do it. The intangibles, the motivational parts of the game are the most important facets of it.”

— Rick Pitino

25. “Nothing meaningful or lasting comes without working hard at it.”

— Rick Pitino

26. “The more you lose, the more positive you have to become. When you’re winning, you can ride players harder because their self-esteem is high. If you are losing and you try to be tough, you’re asking for dissension.”

— Rick Pitino

27. “Dreamers are not content with being mediocre.”

— Rick Pitino

28. “Self-esteem is directly linked to deserving success. You must deserve victory to feel good about yourself.”

— Rick Pitino

29. “The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they’re working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.”

— Rick Pitino

30. “All good things have to come to an end, and the male cheerleader has come to an end.”

— Rick Pitino

31. “I ignore the jealous, I ignore the malicious, I ignore the ignorant and I ignore the paranoid.”

— Rick Pitino

32. “When you describe passion at any age, passion is derived from everything, from the people you work with to enjoying the last years.”

— Rick Pitino

33. “I just don’t deal with the negativity. I can’t get involved in that side of it. I don’t understand it, and you can’t let it take away from your life and what you are trying to do.”

— Rick Pitino

34. “Coaches are bridge builders. It’s our job to build a bridge for our athletes to cross over.”

— Rick Pitino

35. “I’m at the stage of my career when it’s not only about winning and developing players, it’s about having fun. That’s a void in your life right now, but it’s something you’re going to have here.”

— Rick Pitino

36. “If I didn’t have a recruiting engagement, I was going to be here. I did everything possible to change the recruiting thing. I’m a very small part of this night, but I did want to be a part of it.”

— Rick Pitino

37. “At Boston University, I motivated negatively, and I found that although it can work at first, by the end of the year everyone is dying for the year to end and you have lost them. The last two years at BU, I motivated positively and got much better results.”

— Rick Pitino

38. “The basic premise of my system is to fatigue your opponents with constant pressure defensively and constant movement offensively.”

— Rick Pitino

39. “Francisco Garcia could have been a high draft choice last year, probably in the 20s. He’s the best wing player I’ve ever coached. But he’s done it the right way. He knew he had to work on his body to become a good pro. When he goes into the pros, he’ll be physically ready.”

— Rick Pitino

40. “Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.”

— Rick Pitino

41. “It could happen to anyone when you get hired by a different president. There’s a difference in philosophies. It happens. It’s a change in CEOs. They have their own people, their own philosophies, and it’s different than what Bob stands for.”

— Rick Pitino

42. “A lot of people always use the term, ‘I’m so blessed.’ Most of it they believe is true.”

— Rick Pitino

43. “He knew I enjoyed the relationships of college basketball. All along, he was the wise one.”

— Rick Pitino

44. “You are trying not only to reach your potential but to move beyond it. If you are not in the best shape you can be, these things simply become more difficult to achieve.”

— Rick Pitino

45. “I learned quickly that motivating people would be the most important responsibility of my career.”

— Rick Pitino

46. “I’d learned how much happiness money can bring you. Very little.”

— Rick Pitino

47. “Inferior guards play on the sidelines and great guards play in the middle. Isiah, Magic, Chris Paul, all get to the middle.”

— Rick Pitino

48. “After September 11, I don’t think people really believe things like this are all that important.”

— Rick Pitino

49. “When love and discipline come together you have great chemistry.”

— Rick Pitino

50. “Doubt is one of the main paths on the highway to failure.”

— Rick Pitino