John Wooden quotes:

Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books - especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.

Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you.

There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer.

Be true to yourself. Make each day a masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendship a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day.

I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.

I think that in any group activity - whether it be business, sports, or family - there has to be leadership or it won't be successful.

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.

Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.

I'd be satisfied just coaching in high school. I turned down a number of colleges when I was teaching in South Bend, Indiana, before I went into the service. I honestly believe that if I hadn't enlisted in the service, I would never have left high school teaching. I'm sure I would have never left.

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.

Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.

I'm not going to say I was opposed to the Vietnam War. I'm going to say I'm opposed to war. But I'm also opposed to protests that deny other people their rights.

Be prepared and be honest.

In the end, it's about the teaching, and what I always loved about coaching was the practices. Not the games, not the tournaments, not the alumni stuff. But teaching the players during practice was what coaching was all about to me.

Passion is momentary; love is enduring.

Ability is a poor man's wealth.

Teaching players during practices was what coaching was all about to me.

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.

I don't believe in fate.

I don't believe in praying to win.

I think permitting the game to become too physical takes away a little bit of the beauty.

If I were a young coach today, I would be extremely careful in selecting assistants.

I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent.

I like to spend time in the past, with the things that have been important to me.

Failure is never fatal. But failure to change can and might be.

If a player's not doing the things he should, put him on the bench. He'll come around.

We can have no progress without change, whether it be basketball or anything else.

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

It isn't what you do, but how you do it.

You can do more good by being good than any other way.

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

My eyesight is not nearly as good. My hearing is probably going away. My memory is slipping too. But I'm still around.

It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.

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

What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player.

Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

Just try to be the best you can be; never cease trying to be the best you can be. That's in your power.

Friendship is two-sided. It isn't a friend just because someone's doing something nice for you. That's a nice person. There's friendship when you do for each other. It's like marriage - it's two-sided.

Love is the most important thing in the world. Hate, we should remove from the dictionary.

Earn the right to be proud and confident.

Just do the best you can. No one can do more than that.

It's not so important who starts the game but who finishes it.

Don't give up on your dreams, or your dreams will give up on you.

Measure yourself bywhat you have accomplished with your ability

Don't mistake activity with achievement.

Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you."

Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.

Never mistake activity for achievement.

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

Next to love, balance is the most important thing.

If you spend too much time learning the 'tricks' of the trade, you may not learn the trade. There are no shortcuts. If you're working on finding a short cut, the easy way, you're not working hard enough on the fundamentals. You may get away with it for a spell, but there is no substitute for the basics. And the first basic is good, old fashioned hard work.

Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.

Young people need models, not critics.

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.

The better conditioned team will probably win in the long run.

If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments, we would all be much happier.

I continually stress to my players that all I expect from them at practice and in the games is their maximum effort.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation.

When people ask me now if I miss coaching UCLA basketball games, the national championships, the attention, the trophies, and everything that goes with them, I tell them this: I miss the practices.

Generally speaking, individual performances don't win basketball games

While you, the leader, can teach many things, character is not taught easily to adults who arrive at your desk lacking it. Be cautious about taking on reclamation projects regardless of the talent they may possess. Have the courage to make character count among the qualities you seek in others.

Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating...too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.

Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating

Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating. Youngsters need good models more than they need critics. It's one of a parent's greatest responsibilities and opportunities.

The individual who is mistake-free is also probably sitting around doing nothing. And that is a very big mistake.

You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes

Don't let making a living prevent you from making a life.

There is no substitute for work. Worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning.

You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.

Surround yourself with people strong enough to change your mind.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.

Be quick, but don't hurry.

Happiness begins where selfishness ends.

If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes.

Dwelling in the past prevents doing something in the present.

Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way.

There is no substitute for hard work. If you're looking for the easy way, if you're looking for the trick, you might get by for a while, but you will not be developing the talents that lie within you. There is simply no substitute for work.

Respect every opponent, but fear none.

Adversity often produces an unexpected opportunity. Look for it ! Appreciate and utilize it! This is difficult to do if you're feeling sorry for yourself because you're faced with adversity.

An effective leader allows exceptions to the rule for exceptional results or when circumstance demands.

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.'

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

I talked to the players and tried to make them aware of what was good and bad, but I didn't try to run their lives.

Once you become a good person, then you have a chance of becoming a good basketball player.

Good coaching is about leadership and instilling respect in your players. Dictators lead through fear - good coaches do not.

You can't make good decisions that are going to be meaningful, productive, when you lose control, and you have to maintain mental control, emotional control and to be able to perform physically up to your own particular level of competency; you have to keep your emotions under control.

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.

The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move.

Discipline of others isn't punishment. You discipline to help, to improve, to correct, to prevent, not to punish, humiliate, or retaliate.

Be quick without hurrying.

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.

The best way to improve your team is to improve yourself.

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

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it.

Over-coaching can be more harmful than under-coaching. Keep it simple!

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.

Passion is temporary. It doesn't last long. Love is enduring. And that's the important thing. If we all had love in our lives to the degree that we should, it would be much happier.

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

I never yelled at my players much. That would have been artificial stimulation, which doesn't last very long. I think it's like love and passion. Passion won't last as long as love. When you are dependent on passion, you need more and more of it to make it work. It's the same with yelling.

Being true to ourselves doesn't make us people of integrity. Charles Manson was true to himself, and as a result, he rightly is spending the rest of his life in prison. Ultimately, being true to our Creator gives us the purest form of integrity.

Everything we know, we learned from someone else!

When we aren't alert, we miss opportunities to improve ourselves. We should always watch for circumstances or situations that can help or harm us and be eager to learn from these encounters.

The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.

Never lie; never cheat; never steal. Don't whine; don't complain; don't make excuses.

Never lie, never cheat, never steal.

It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.

No one is an overachiever. How can you rise above your level of competency? Everyone is an underachiever to different degrees. The harder you work, the more luck you will have.

The general feeling is, if you don't treat everyone the same you're showing partiality. To me, that's when you show the most partiality, when you treat everyone the same. You must give each individual the treatment that you feel he earns and deserves, recognizing at all times that you're imperfect and you're going to be incorrect oftentimes in your judgment.

All of life is peaks and valleys. Don't let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.

Goals should be difficult to achieve because those achieved with little effort are seldom appreciated, give little personal satisfaction, and are often not very worthwhile. There is a price to be paid for achieving anything of significance.

You cannot antagonize and be a positive influence, and you will antagonize when you discipline through emotion.

Without organization and leadership toward a realistic goal, there is no chance of realizing more than a small percentage of your potential.

Every day, try to help someone who can't reciprocate your kindness.

Be more concerned with character than reputation. Character is what you are, reputation is what people think you are.

If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?