Quotes by John Wooden

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

Related topics: Wisdom Life Human-Nature Psychology Inspirational Live-By

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

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.
- John Wooden

Do not let what you cannot do
interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Don't let what you cannot do
interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

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

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation.
- John Wooden

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.
- John Wooden

Beating an opponent is not a goal,
but a by-product of success.
- John Wooden

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.
- John Wooden

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

Youngsters need good models more than they need critics.
- John Wooden

Make your "yes" mean yes,
and your "no" mean no.
- John Wooden

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

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

More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.
- Billy Sunday

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have,
instead of what you don't have.
- Woody Allen

When I examine myself and my methods of thought,
I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy
has meant more to me than
any talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

Confidence is the most important single factor in this game,
and no matter how great your natural talent,
there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.
- Jack Nicklaus

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me
than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had
because they didn't have the talent
or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
- Nelson Mandela

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge

Your talent is God's gift to you.
- Leo Buscaglia

I have no special talent.
I am only passionately curious.
- Albert Einstein

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung

We believe that if men have the talent
to invent new machines that put men out of work,
they have the talent to put those men back to work.
- John F. Kennedy

I think this is the most extraordinary
collection of talent, of human knowledge,
that has ever been gathered at the White House -
with the possible exception of
when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
- John F. Kennedy

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

Tolerance is the first principle of community;
it is the spirit which conserves
the best that all men think.
- Helen Keller

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph
is for enough good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke

When It's Darkest, Men See the Stars.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

There is a good ear, in some men,
that draws supplies to virtue
out of very indifferent nutriment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are disturbed not by things,
but by the view which they take of them.
- Epictetus

Habits age men before their time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The only good luck many great men ever had was
being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.
- Channing Pollock

How could man rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
- Lao Tzu

Truth is the property of no individual
but is the treasure of all men.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Behind an able man there are always other able men.
- Chinese proverb

Who never walks save where he sees
men's tracks, makes no discoveries.
- J. G. Holland

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.
Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood
between sincere men of all denominations.
- Helen Keller

Men and women are not prisoners of fate,
but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
- Abraham Lincoln

Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.
Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau

The problems of the world cannot possibly
be solved by skeptics or cynics
whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities.
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
- John F. Kennedy

The majority of men meet with failure
because of their lack of persistence
in creating new plans to take
the place of those which fail.
- Napoleon Hill

Women must try to do things as men have tried.
When they fail their failure must be
but a challenge to others.
- Amelia Earhart

Great men or men of great gifts
you shall easily find,
but symmetrical men never.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wise men put their trust in ideas
and not in circumstances
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men are not prisoners of fate,
but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I do not believe in a fate that
falls on men however they act;
but I do believe in a fate
that falls on them unless they act.
- The Buddha

Man becomes great exactly in the degree
in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard

When men are easy in their circumstances,
they are naturally enemies to innovations.
- Joseph Addison

Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not pray for easy lives.
Pray to be stronger men.
- John F. Kennedy

The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Achievement seems to be connected with action.
Successful men and women keep moving.
They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
- Conrad Hilton

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Shallow men believe in luck.
Strong men believe in cause and effect.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are times, sir, when men of good conscience
cannot blindly follow orders.
- Captain Picard, STAR TREK: The Next Generation

Men in general judge more from
appearances than from reality. All
men have eyes, but few have
the gift of penetration.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
- Henry David Thoreau

Men occasionally stumble over the truth,
but most of them pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill

Men of lofty genius,
when they are doing the least work,
are most active.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau

All successful people men and women are big dreamers.
They imagine what their future could be,
ideal in every respect,
and then they work every day toward
their distant vision,
that goal or purpose.
- Brian Tracy

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize.
The first is gentleness;
the second is frugality;
the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others.
Be gentle and you can be bold;
be frugal and you can be generous;
avoid putting yourself before others
and you can become a leader among men.
- Lao Tzu

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie