Best John Wooden Quotes

Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

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

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

Sports do not build character. They reveal it.

You cannot attain and maintain physical condition unless you are morally and mentally conditioned. And it is impossible to be in moral condition unless you are spiritually conditioned. I always told my players that our team condition depended on two factors -- how hard they worked on the floor during practice and how well they behaved between practices.

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

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

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

Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

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

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.

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

Although I wanted my players to work to win, I tried to convince them they had always won when they had done their best.

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

Success is peace of mind, a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming, and not just in a physical way: seek ye first the kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be yours as well.

I always tried to make clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere.

It is most difficult, in my mind, to separate any success, whether it be in your profession, your family, or as in my case, in basketball, from religion.

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

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.

For an athlete to function properly, he must be intent. There has to be a definite purpose and goal if you are to progress. If you are not intent about what you are doing, you aren't able to resist the temptation to do something else that might be more fun at the moment.

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

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