Top 35 Scott Hamilton Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”

— Scott Hamilton

Featured in: Attitude Quotes, Feel Good Quotes, Personality Quotes, Happy Quotes, Encouragement Quotes

2. “The high road is always respected. Honesty and integrity are always rewarded.”

— Scott Hamilton

3. “The path to victory is the path you’re on. It becomes a path to victory the moment you decide it does.”

— Scott Hamilton

4. “A bad attitude is the only true handicap.”

— Scott Hamilton

5. “Adversity, and perseverance and all these things can shape you. They can give you a value and a self-esteem that is priceless.”

— Scott Hamilton

6. “I was more interested in skating and the girls and traveling than I was in calculus.”

— Scott Hamilton

7. “Focus on building up others, and your own sense of self-worth will improve. Some call these random acts of human kindness. But the truth is, acting unselfishly is not random at all. Instead, it is a conscious, concerted effort to make the world better by making someone else’s life better. The bonus: you will be happier by doing it.”

— Scott Hamilton

8. “Each movement is only learned after you’ve perfected the one before it.”

— Scott Hamilton

9. “Refined indifference is a sports psychology precept: train like there’s no tomorrow and then accept whatever happens. Once you step on the field realize that whatever is meant to be is meant to be.”

— Scott Hamilton

10. “I don’t want to look back-I want to keep looking ahead. I’d hate for my defining moment to be my past.”

— Scott Hamilton

11. “Everything that I’ve ever been able to accomplish in skating and in life has come out of adversity and perseverance.”

— Scott Hamilton

12. “When you’re expected to win and you have the press saying that you are going to win the Olympic gold medal, and you’re the only sure thing in the Olympics, it can undermine your confidence.”

— Scott Hamilton

13. “I don’t think most teachers realize how much impact they have.”

— Scott Hamilton

14. “What’s the point of doing anything if it’s easy? It’s so much more valuable when a challenge has to be overcome.”

— Scott Hamilton

15. “Have you ever stopped for a minute to think about how many things had to go wrong in your life for you to end up exactly where you are?”

— Scott Hamilton

16. “Half of figure skating is opinion, convincing judges.”

— Scott Hamilton

17. “What was really funny is that as I got older all those guys who called me a sissy in junior high school wanted me to be their best friend because they wanted to meet all the girls that I knew in figure skating.”

— Scott Hamilton

18. “I just try to touch people’s hearts in a way through skating, so they’re not just witnessing a performance, they’re feeling a performance and they’re a part of it.”

— Scott Hamilton

19. “Always try to maintain complete tolerance and always make an effort to give people more then they expect.”

— Scott Hamilton

20. “Male figure skating is different than female figure skating; we’re not America’s sweetheart.”

— Scott Hamilton

21. “I didn’t want to be the sissy figure skater, you know.”

— Scott Hamilton

22. “Fame is a very confusing thing, because you are recognized by a lot of people that you’ve never seen before, and they’re at a great advantage.”

— Scott Hamilton

23. “I’m very accessible. I don’t get into this ego thing.”

— Scott Hamilton

24. “I was nine-years-old when I first put on skates.”

— Scott Hamilton

25. “And the fact that I liked to show off and be the center of attention really lends itself to figure skating very well.”

— Scott Hamilton

26. “Memories just get richer with time.”

— Scott Hamilton

27. “Without strength and courage it’s really hard to perform at the highest levels of international figure skating, because you’re alone on the ice and you only have seven minutes over two nights to prove yourself.”

— Scott Hamilton

28. “When you turn professional, you become an entertainer, and like every other entertainer, you don’t want to get a bad review.”

— Scott Hamilton

29. “I started skating and I kind of liked it because I could run circles around the guys that wouldn’t pick me to play baseball.”

— Scott Hamilton

30. “From the fall of October, 1980 to March, 1984 I never lost a competition.”

— Scott Hamilton

31. “Rationality is not one of this industry’s attributes.”

— Scott Hamilton

32. “But I never really thought that I would be extraordinarily successful at skating, it’s just something that happened, you know.”

— Scott Hamilton

33. “I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.”

— Scott Hamilton

34. “Most other competitions are individual achievements, but the Olympic Games is something that belongs to everybody.”

— Scott Hamilton

35. “The Olympics in ’80 was phenomenal. It was my favorite memory of all competitive events, because it was brand new and it was exciting.”

— Scott Hamilton

36. “I graduated a the top of my class in the ’84 Olympic Games; I won a gold medal.”

— Scott Hamilton

37. “So as an amateur Olympic competitor I loved criticism, because it made me better. But now as a professional I don’t really know how to channel it or where to take it, so I don’t take it quite as well.”

— Scott Hamilton

38. “And so figure skating was a great vehicle for me to kind of be competitive at something, without having to be big.”

— Scott Hamilton

39. “Some bad things are going to happen, but more great things are going to happen. If you tend to see more bad than good, then you have to build that positive muscle in your brain much like an athlete does certain muscles to execute a certain move.”

— Scott Hamilton