Bill Bradley Quotes

#1. A lot of people want to change the world, but only a few people want to change themselves. When it comes to the issue of race in America, we have to do both.

Bill Bradley

#2. Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.

Bill Bradley

#3. When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.

Bill Bradley

#4. Mark Twain put it best when he said, 'Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated,.

Bill Bradley

#5. A good coach must celebrate in private. He cannot gloat to the press after a victory or criticize heavily after defeat ... His game is of such motivation and strategy that only a few people understand his craft.

Bill Bradley

#6. Leaders should be collaborative, modest, and generous.

Bill Bradley

#7. The point of the game is not how well the individual does, but whether the team wins. That's the beautiful heart of the game, the blending of personalities, the mutual sacrifices for the group success.

Bill Bradley

#8. I think the political process has degenerated into name-calling and extremism, and I think that that's unfortunate.

Bill Bradley

#9. How should we Democrats select the next presidential nominee? Smoke filled rooms? Brokered convention? National primary? Personally, I prefer jump shots from the top of the key.

Bill Bradley

#10. All I have are the people.

Bill Bradley

#11. Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, 'Just watch!'

Bill Bradley

#12. Tax (reform) is ultimately a decision about values.

Bill Bradley

#13. I like the rough impersonality of New York ... Human relations are oiled by jokes, complaints, and confessions-all made with the assumption of never seeing the other person again.

Bill Bradley

#14. Al Gore clearly has the vision ... it's a much better vision than that of George W. Bush.

Bill Bradley

#15. The UN is committed to the goal of ensuring that all nations share in economic, social, & scientific progress. It delivers humanitarian assistance to the victims of wars and natural disasters.

Bill Bradley

#16. I might lose because I wasn't tall enough; I might lose because I wasn't fast enough. But I wasn't going to lose because I wasn't ready.

Bill Bradley

#17. We have to repair that trust ... I think anytime a public official lies, he undermines his own authority and squanders the public trust.

Bill Bradley

#18. People tell me, "I'm glad you said that." But this is not a spectator sport. This is an activity that requires daily moral awakening as well as a commitment that leads to real change.

Bill Bradley

#19. For a long time, I operated under the Chinese proverb that there are four kinds of leaders: those who you laugh at, those who you hate, those who you love and those who you don't even know that they're leaders.

Bill Bradley

#20. Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball.

Bill Bradley

#21. Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better.

Bill Bradley

#22. Living life intensely has a momentum and exhilaration of its own. Thinking about events you have experienced, and developing perspective about them, in some way completes, and finding words to express them gives perspective and bring about a sense of closure.

Bill Bradley

#23. Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.

Bill Bradley

#24. Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it. No destructive lies. No ridiculous fears. No debilitating anger.

Bill Bradley

#25. When the playing is over, one can sense that one's youth has been spent playing a game, and now both the game and youth are gone.

Bill Bradley

#26. Behind all the years of practice and all the hours of glory waits that inexorable terror of living without the game.

Bill Bradley

#27. Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.

Bill Bradley

#28. When you're not practicing, someone somewhere is. And when the two of you meet, assuming roughly equal ability, the other person will win.

Bill Bradley

#29. Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.

Bill Bradley

#30. We realized that no one of us could be as good as all of us playing unselfishly.

Bill Bradley

#31. Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one.

Bill Bradley

#32. The taste of defeat has a richness of experience all its own.

Bill Bradley

#33. Some people say we can never achieve our special destiny, but I say, in a world of new possibilities guided by goodness, we can and we will.

Bill Bradley

#34. There has never been a great athlete who died not knowing what pain is.

Bill Bradley

#35. The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices.

Bill Bradley

#36. Give to another human being without the expectation of a return.

Bill Bradley

#37. We need to get beyond the politics of the moment, the deficit of the hour, the military count of the day, the numbers that rarely shape events. Our long-term interests must be in people and in the values of democracy and individual liberty.

Bill Bradley