Inspirations

I worked very hard. I felt I could play the game. The only thing that could stop me was myself.

- Jim Abbott

You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go. Don't ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.

- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

It has meant a lot to me to challenge the best players in the world and to beat them. And it means a lot to me to be out here and fighting for the title and, you know, it hurts not to win it.

- Andre Agassi

How can we hope to remain economically competitive in a world in which, 90% of Dutch high-school students take advanced math courses and 100% of teachers in Germany have double majors, while the best we can say about our pocket of excellence is that 75% of American students have learned to critique tactfully?

- Barbara J Alexander

World trade means competition from anywhere, advancing technology encourages cross-industry competition. Consequently, strategic planning must consider who our future competitors will be, not only who is here today.

- Eric Allison

The Law of Win/Win says, Let's not do it your way or my way, let's do it the best way.

- Greg Anderson

What it comes down to is that anybody can win with the best horse. What makes you good is if you can take the second or third-best horse and win.

- Vicky Aragon

Thank God for competition. When our competitors upset our plans or outdo our designs, they open infinite possibilities of our own work to us.

- Gil Atkinson

I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I Love to play.

- Boris Becker

The game isn't over until it's over.

- Yogi Berra

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your tricks of war.

- Napoleon Bonaparte

Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one.

- Bill Bradley

Show me a guy who is afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time.

- Lou Brock

Somebody will always break your records. It is how you live that counts.

- Earl Campbell

I don't psyche myself up. I psyche myself down. I think clearer when I'm not psyched up.

- Steve Cauthen

Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath.

- Wilt Chamberlain

The general fact is that the most effective way of utilizing human energy is through an organized rivalry, which by specialization and social control is, at the same time, organized co-operation.

- Charles Horton Cooley

It's amazing how much of this is mental. Everybody's in good shape. Everybody knows how to ski. Everybody has good equipment. When it really boils down to it, it's who wants it the most, and who's the most confident on his skis.

- Reggie Crist

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

- Dwight D Eisenhower

You must sacrifice, train, do everything possible to put yourself in a position to win. But if you consider second or third a failure, I feel sorry for you.

- Joe Falcon

You get out in front, you stay out in front.

- A J Foyt

There are two kinds of people. Those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group because there is less competition there.

- Indira Gandhi

The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be only sustainable competitive advantage.

- Arie de Geus

Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.

- Oliver Goldsmith

Racing is a matter of spirit not strength.

- Janet Guthrie

Every time you go out on the ice, there are slight flaws. You can always think of something you should have done better. These are the things you must work on.

- Dorothy Hamill

Men often compete with one another until the day they die, comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.

- Edward Hoagland

I play golf with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.

- Ben Hogan

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

- Lou Holtz

The biggest things are often the easiest to do because there is so little competition.

- William Van Horne

You find that you have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep, and rest when you know that it was a one hundred percent effort that you gave, win or lose.

- Gordie Howe

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed, there's so little competition.

- Elbert Hubbard

And what is the greatest number? Number one.

- David Hume

The only competition worthy a wise man is with himself.

- Misses Jamieson

Running for money doesn't make you run fast. It makes you run first.

- Ben Jipcho

Once your physically capable of winning a gold medal, the rest is ninety percent mental.

- Patti Johnson

We want to be first, not first if, not first but, but first!

- John F Kennedy

The medals don't mean anything and the glory doesn't last. It's all about your happiness. The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing.

- Jackie Joyner Kersee

You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.

- A J Kitt

Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.

- Bobby Knight

When the game is over it is really just beginning.

- Jerry Kramer

Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.

- Charles Lamb

When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn.

- Tom Landry

The time your game is most vulnerable is when you're ahead, never let up.

- Rod Laver

Competition is the spice of sports, but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick.

- George Leonard

A competitor will find a way to win. Competitors take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder. Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up. It's all a matter of pride.

- Nancy Lopez

He can run but he can't hide.

- Joe Louis

I consider myself one of a very small handful of drivers in the world that are top drivers. The best one? I don't think anybody can say they're the best one because, from one week to the next, you can be on form or off form a little bit.

- Nigel Mansell

This is a tough game. There are times when you've got to play hurt, when you've got to block out the pain.

- Shaquille O'Neal

I don't compete with other discus throwers. I compete with my own history.

- Al Oerter

Playing safe is only playing.

- Chuck Olson

A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace.

- Ovid

Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

- Leroy Satchel Paige

You must play boldly to win.

- Arnold Palmer

I don't care how good you play, you can find somebody who can beat you, and I don't care how bad you play, you can find somebody you can beat.

- Harvey Penick

There is nothing noble in being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

- Indian Proverb

After the game the King and pawn go into the same box.

- Italian Proverb

For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes. not that you won or lost, but how you played the Game.

- Grantland Rice

I won it, at least five million times. Men who were stronger, bigger and faster than I was could have done it, but they never picked up a pole, and never made the feeble effort to pick their legs off the ground and get over the bar.

- Bob Richards

You have to defeat a great players aura more than his game.

- Pat Riley

Win or lose, do it fairly.

- Knute Rockne

The difference of great players is at a certain point in a match they raise their level of play and maintain it. Lesser players play great for a set, but then less.

- Pete Sampras

Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good someone else.

- William Saroyan

When you step onto that field, you cannot concede a thing.

- Gayle Sayers

The weakness of an enemy forms part of our own strength.

- Saying

Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

- William Shakespeare

When you fear a foe, fear crushes your strength, and this weakness gives strength to your opponents.