Winning Quotes
One of the most famous winning quotes ever spoken comes from Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi, who famously said “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
The NFL legend understood that to be a winner, you must give 100% effort to achieve that goal.
But what else makes up the mindset of a champion? To answer that question, we’ve collected the best winning quotes from famous athletes, business people, writers, and politicians. Read on!
Top 10 best winning quotes
Let’s begin with ten of our favorite winning quotes. These sayings capture the essence of what it means to consistently come out on top, no matter if it’s in sports or life.
1.) Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Vince Lombardi
2.) A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.
Jack Dempsey
3.) A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.
Nelson Mandela
4.) Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.
Babe Ruth
5.) Losing feels worse than winning feels good.
Vin Scully
6.) Our greatest glory is not in falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius
7.) It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.
Vince Lombardi
8.) Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No almosts.
Kobe Bryant
9.) Whoever said, “It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,” probably lost.
Martina Navratilova
10.) Winning is the best deodorant.
Jason Kidd
1. Funny sayings about winning
Looking for a laugh? Here’s a lighter look at what it means to be a winner.
Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.
George Steinbrenner
Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything that comes in second.
Paul Bryant
One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
Oscar Wilde
The biggest thrill wasn’t in winning on Sunday but in meeting the payroll on Monday.
Art Rooney
I never did say that you can’t be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I’d trip her up.
Leo Durocher
If you think the price of winning is too high, wait till you get the bill from regret.
Tim S. Grover
If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?
Vince Lombardi
No matter how much you’ve won, no matter how many games, no matter how many championships, no matter how many Super Bowls, you’re not winning now, so you stink.
Bill Parcells
2. Short winning quotes
These short and succinct quotes cut to the chase and deliver a clear message about winning.
History is written by winners.
Napoleon Bonaparte
You will win if you don’t quit.
Les Brown
Winning solves everything.
Tiger Woods
All I ever wanted to do was finish first.
Jackie Robinson
You were born to win.
Zig Ziglar
We run to win, not just to be in the race.
Vince Lombardi
The person that works the hardest wins.
Will Smith
The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning.
Charlie Sheen
3. Winning quotes for sports
In this section, you’ll find quotes about what it means to be a champion — spoken by those who have won at the highest levels of sports.
Winning isn’t everything, but wanting it is.
Arnold Palmer
All I cared about in tennis was winning.
Pete Sampras
It was never about winning medals or being famous.
Nancy Kerrigan
The person that said winning isn’t everything, never won anything.
Mia Hamm
I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I Love to play.
Boris Becker
I’m never tired of winning, and I’m never tired of skiing.
Lindsey Vonn
There are always new, grander challenges to confront, and a true winner will embrace each one.
Mia Hamm
Never change a winning game; always change a losing one.
Bill Tilden
About teams and teamwork
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.
Michael Jordan
Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
Vince Lombardi
The secret to winning is constant, consistent management.
Tom Landry
You can’t win if you don’t play as a unit.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
At a young age winning is not the most important thing… the important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.
Arsene Wenger
Competing at the highest level is not about winning. It’s about preparation, courage, understanding and nurturing your people, and heart. Winning is the result.
Joe Torre
Baseball quotes
No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you’re going to win one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.
Tommy Lasorda
If you’re going to play at all, you’re out to win. Baseball, board games, playing Jeopardy, I hate to lose.
Derek Jeter
Basketball quotes
A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.
Pat Riley
I play to win, whether during practice or a real game.
Michael Jordan
Nothing is black-and-white, except for winning and losing, and maybe that’s why people gravitate to that so much.
Steve Nash
You can’t win unless you learn how to lose.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John R. Wooden
Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.
Mike Krzyzewski
Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.
Pat Riley
I’m a mad dog whose only concern is winning.
Charles Barkley
Football quotes
Winning isn’t everything — but wanting to win is.
Vince Lombardi
Show me a gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.
Knute Rockne
I’m a pretty good winner. I’m a terrible loser. And I rub it in pretty good when I win.
Tom Brady
The critics are always right. The only way you shut them up is by winning.
Chuck Noll
Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream.
Emmitt Smith
I just think winners win. And guys who won all the way through high school and college, the best player at every level, they have a way of making things happen and winning games.
Tony Dungy
4. Winning quotes for work
What does it mean to win in the work environment? Let’s look at what the experts say about developing a winning attitude at the office and achieving greatness in your career.
Winning is a state of mind that embraces everything you do.
Bryce Courtenay
Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.
Malcolm Forbes
If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.
Zig Ziglar
Optimism leads to success; pessimism leads to defeat.
Dalai Lama
For business
Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.
Zig Ziglar
Success in business requires training, discipline and hard work.
Unknown
Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving.
Denis Waitley
The most distinguishing feature of winners is their intensity of purpose.
Alymer Letterman
About competition
Competition is good but winning is better.
Unknown
Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.
Sun Tzu
The only way to win is to fight on the side of your adversaries.
Francis Picabia
Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.
Robert T. Kiyosaki
About culture
The determination to win is the better part of winning.
Daisaku Ikeda
Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve ever done before.
Bonnie Blair
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
Vince Lombardi
About leadership
You learn more from losing than winning. You learn how to keep going.
Morgan Wootten
While most are dreaming of success, winners wake up and work hard to achieve it.
Unknown
For entrepreneurs
Not all dreamers are winners, but all winners are dreamers. Your dream is the key to your future.
Mark Gorman
You can’t win unless you first begin. So start now.
Robin S. Sharma
It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.
Abdul Kalam
5. Winning quotes for students
Parents and teachers will find inspiring words here to encourage young students and help them achieve their dreams.
I tell the kids, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just try to get better.
Yogi Berra
Aim to be the best you can be. When you have done it — you’ll be a winner, always.
Unknown
Winning is only half of it. Having fun is the other half.
Bum Phillips
Winning once or twice is encouraging, but winning continuously is empowering.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Check out these graduation advice messages for students.
6. Winning quotes about attitude
What does it take to be a winner? Let’s look at what the experts say about effort, attitude, and the mindset of success.
Expect the unexpected, believe in the unbelievable, achieve the unachievable.
Unknown
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Napoleon Hill
You were not born a winner, and you were not born a loser. You are what you make yourself to be.
Lou Holtz
Winning isn’t getting ahead of others. It’s getting ahead of yourself.
Roger Staubach
The difference in winning and losing is most often… not quitting.
Walt Disney
I am not designed to come second or third. I am designed to win.
Ayrton Senna
About effort
The extra energy required to make another effort is the secret of winning.
Denis Waitley
Persistence is the quality of winners. Successful people never never give up.
Lynda Field
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.
Napoleon Hill
Winners are willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.
Vince Lombardi
About preparation
It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.
Paul Bryant
Everyone has a will to win but very few have the will to prepare to win.
Vince Lombardi
The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.
Bobby Knight
About the winning edge
You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying. To the best you can do everyday.
Jason Mraz
If you want to be a winner, hang around with winners.
Christopher D. Furman
I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.
Kobe Bryant
About mindset
Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.
Vince Lombardi
Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.
Tom Krause
Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things losers don’t like to do.
Albert Gray
Your mind is a powerful thing. When you fill it with positive thoughts your life will start to change.
Unknown
Always imitate the behavior of the winners when you lose.
George Meredith
First, accept sadness. Realize that without losing, winning isn’t so great.
Alyssa Milano
About the winning spirit
You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.
Zig Ziglar
Obstacles are challenges for winners and excuses for losers.
M. E. Kerr
The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.
Confucius
Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.
Wilma Rudolph
Winners vs losers
The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers.
Brian Tracy
A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
Billie Jean King
When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less.
Paul Brown
I believe there’s an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.
Sylvester Stallone
It’s not whether you win or lose — but whether I win or lose.
Sandy Lyle
Winners and losers aren’t born, they are the products of how they think.
Lou Holtz
The winners are those who learn to take full responsibility for their actions. The losers are those who blame others for their failures.
Unknown
There are more important things in life than winning or losing a game.
Lionel Messi
There’s no success without failure and no winning without losing.
Pitbull
Everything is good when you’re winning. But true colors come out when you lose.
Jamal Murray
7. Inspirational winning quotes
These sayings will give you the encouragement and motivation to keep moving forward in your pursuit to win.
A winner never stops trying.
Tom Landry
If you can dream it. You can do it.
Walt Disney
I’ve grown most not from victories, but setbacks. If winning is God’s reward, then losing is how he teaches us.
Serena Williams
About encouragement
If you can dream it, you can do it.
Walt Disney
Sometimes in life you don’t always feel like a winner, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a winner.
Lady Gaga
Men of action are favored by the goddess of good luck.
George S. Clason
About motivation
When you lose your ego, you win. It really is that simple.
Shannon L. Alder
I used to think that losing made you more hungry and determined but after my success at the Olympics and the U.S. Open I realize that winning is the biggest motivation.
Andy Murray
Never give up quotes
The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.
Vince Lombardi
Trust me I never lose. Either I win or learn from it.
Tupac Shakur
You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win.
Ted Turner
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
Seneca
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
Margaret Thatcher
Positive
Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.
Brian Tracy
Happiness
The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning!
Pelé
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Unknown
8. Famous winning quotes
Perhaps you’ll recognize some of these famous quotes about winning. They have been recited over and over throughout the years to inspire and motivate.
It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.
Grantland Rice
A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
Napoleon Hill
To winners, nothing seems unpleasant.
William Shakespeare
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.
Abraham Lincoln
You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
Harper Lee
It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.
E.B. White
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure.
Theodore Roosevelt
Winning quotes from movies
It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!
Rocky Balboa
The only winning move is not to play.
Movie WarGames
9. Winning quotes for Instagram captions
Add a caption to your next winning social media post. Let everyone know you ‘Play to win!’
- Winners train, losers complain.
- I’m never tired of winning.
- Today’s forecast: 100% chance of winning.
- In it to win it.
- Winners don’t wait for chances, they take them.
- Win! No one remembers the losers.
- A winning smile makes winners of us all.
- It’s not over until you win.
- If you can accept losing, you can’t win.
- Defeat your enemies with success.
- If you can’t win an argument, correct their grammar instead.
- Winning starts with beginning.
- I will win. Not immediately, but definitely.
- If you believe in yourself, everything is possible!
- Winners are not people who never fail, but people who never quit.
- Mindset is what separates the best from the rest.
- Failure defeats losers but inspires winners.
- Winners focus on winning. Losers focus on winners.
- Winners are those that convert problems into opportunities.
- Attitude, the difference between winners and losers.
- Winners are ordinary people with extraordinary heart.
- Gonna call in sick to work tomorrow. Came down with a case of winning.
- Happiness is winning after a competitive round a Monopoly.
- Win like a man and lose like a man.
- Boom, crush. Night, losers. Winning, duh.
- Go all in for what you want and you will win.
We hope you feel inspired and empowered by these winning quotes and sayings. Be sure to check out these other quote lists:
By Greg Johnson | Published 11/17/2022
