Vince Lombardi Quotes

#1. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.

Vince Lombardi

#2. The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.

Vince Lombardi

#3. No one is ever hurt. Hurt is in the mind.

Vince Lombardi

#4. Winning is not everything it is the only thing

Vince Lombardi

#5. And the trouble with me is that my ego just can't accept a loss. I suppose that if I were more perfectly adjusted, I would toss off defeat, but my name is on this ball club. Thirty-six men publicly reflect me and reflect on me, and it's a matter of my pride.

Vince Lombardi

#6. True perfection is unattainable, but if you chase perfection you will catch excellence!

Vince Lombardi

#7. A good executive goes around with a worried look on his assistants.

Vince Lombardi

#8. The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

Vince Lombardi

#9. The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.

Vince Lombardi

#10. If you give me anything less than your best, you're not only cheating yourself. your coaches, your teamates, everybody in Green Bay, and everything pro football stands for. Your also cheating the Maker who gave you the talent.

Vince Lombardi

#11. Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.

Vince Lombardi

#12. If you can't get emotional about what you believe in your heart, you're in the wrong business.

Vince Lombardi

#13. Everyone Has A Will To Win But Very Few Have The Will To Prepare To Win

Vince Lombardi

#14. In a game like football, where you have very little time to decide what you are going to do, you have to react almost instinctively, naturally.

Vince Lombardi

#15. Many more things would be accomplished if we didn't consider them impossible.

Vince Lombardi

#16. If you are five minutes early, you are already ten minutes late.

Vince Lombardi

#17. There is something good in men that really yearn for discipline.

Vince Lombardi

#18. Mistakes are the necessary steps in the learning process; once they have served their purpose, they should be forgotten and not repeated.

Vince Lombardi

#19. When you're tired, you rationalize. You make excuses in your mind. You say, "I'm too tired; I'm bushed; I can't do this; I'll loaf." Then you're a coward.

Vince Lombardi

#20. Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will be judged by only one thing-the result.

Vince Lombardi

#21. Greatness is not attainable, but in the pursuit of it, you can achieve excellence.

Vince Lombardi

#22. The objective is to win: fairly, squarely, decently, win by the rules, but still win.

Vince Lombardi

#23. Gentleman, this is a football.

Vince Lombardi

#24. Once you agree upon the price you and your family must pay for success, it enables you to ignore the minor hurts, the opponent's pressure, and the temporary failures.

Vince Lombardi

#25. You defeat defeatism with confidence.

Vince Lombardi

#26. The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It's your mind you have to convince.

Vince Lombardi

#27. The challenge of every team is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another because the question is usually not how well each person performs, but how well they work together.

Vince Lombardi

#28. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

Vince Lombardi

#29. Leaders aren't born they are made.

Vince Lombardi

#30. The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.

Vince Lombardi

#31. It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up.

Vince Lombardi

#32. We shall play every game to the hilt with every ounce of fiber we have in our bodies.

Vince Lombardi

#33. Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.

Vince Lombardi

#34. Leaders are made, they are not born

Vince Lombardi

#35. There's only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything.

Vince Lombardi

#36. To the winner, there is 100-percent elation, 100-percent fun, 100-percent laughter; and yet the only thing left to the loser is resolution and determination.

Vince Lombardi

#37. Winning is not everything - but making the effort to win was ... If you can't accept losing, you can't win.

Vince Lombardi

#38. Success rests not only on ability, but upon commitment, loyalty, and pride.

Vince Lombardi

#39. If a man is running down the street with everything you own, you won't let him get away. That's tackling.

Vince Lombardi

#40. It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever - the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it.

Vince Lombardi

#41. A man is known by the company he owns.

Vince Lombardi

#42. Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale.

Vince Lombardi

#43. There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that is first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay and I never want to finish second again.

Vince Lombardi

#44. Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible.

Vince Lombardi

#45. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

Vince Lombardi

#46. Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.

Vince Lombardi

#47. Each of us, if we would grow, must be committed to excellence. The championships, the money, the color; all of these things linger only in the memory. It is the spirit, the will to excel, the will to win; these are the things that endure.

Vince Lombardi

#48. Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.

Vince Lombardi

#49. Most people fail, not because of lack of desire, but, because of lack of commitment.

Vince Lombardi

#50. We don't pray to win. We pray to play the best we can, and to keep us free from injury. And the prayer we say after the game is one of thanksgiving.

Vince Lombardi

#51. You never win a game unless you beat the guy in front of you. The score on the board doesn't mean a thing. That's for the fans. You've got to win the war with the man in front of you. You've got to get your man.

Vince Lombardi

#52. The coaches who win are the ones who can motivate their players. Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything.

Vince Lombardi

#53. One's desire, not ability, determines success.

Vince Lombardi

#54. All right mister, let me tell you that winning means you're willing to go longer, work harder, give more than anyone else.

Vince Lombardi

#55. Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.

Vince Lombardi

#56. The darkest moments of our lives are not to be buried and forgotten, rather they are a memory to be called upon for inspiration to remind us of the unrelenting human spirit and our capacity to overcome the intolerable

Vince Lombardi

#57. Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity.

Vince Lombardi

#58. Leaders are not born, they're made.

Vince Lombardi

#59. Mental toughness is essential to success.

Vince Lombardi

#60. There are three things important to every man in this locker room. His God, his family, and the Green Bay Packers. In that order.

Vince Lombardi

#61. Offensively, you do what you do best and you do it again and again. Defensively, you attack your opponent's strength.

Vince Lombardi

#62. The strength of the group is the strength of the leaders.

Vince Lombardi

#63. Those who have invested the most are the last to surrender.

Vince Lombardi

#64. Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness and respect for authority is the price that each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

Vince Lombardi

#65. I don't necessarily have to like my players and associates but as their leader I must love them. Love is loyalty, love is teamwork, love respects the dignity of the individual. This is the strength of any organization.

Vince Lombardi

#66. Football is blocking and tackling. Everything else is mythology.

Vince Lombardi

#67. The will to win ... the will to achieve ... goes dry and arid without continuous renewal.

Vince Lombardi

#68. If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.

Vince Lombardi

#69. Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the 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.

Vince Lombardi

#70. The joy is in creating, not maintaining.

Vince Lombardi

#71. If you cheat yourself in practice, you'll cheat yourself in a game; and if you cheat in a game, you'll cheat yourself for the rest of your life.

Vince Lombardi

#72. I hold it more important to hold the player's confidence than their affection.

Vince Lombardi

#73. Regardless of what you do put in, every game boils down to doing the things you do best and doing them over and over again.

Vince Lombardi

#74. There is only one kind of discipline, and that is the perfect discipline. As a leader, you must enforce and maintain that discipline; otherwise, you will fail at your job.

Vince Lombardi

#75. A disciplined person is one who follows the will of the one who gives the orders.

Vince Lombardi

#76. You've got to keep yourself in prime physical condition, because fatigue makes cowards of us all.

Vince Lombardi

#77. Illness and fatigue can be career ending. It mean the fans are sick and tired of you.

Vince Lombardi

#78. People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.

Vince Lombardi

#79. They may not love you at the time, but they will later.

Vince Lombardi

#80. Morally, the life of the organization must be of exemplary nature. This is one phase where the organization must not have criticism.

Vince Lombardi

#81. Once a man has made a commitment to a way of life, he puts the greatest strength in the world behind him. It's something we call heart power. Once a man has made this commitment, nothing will stop him short of success.

Vince Lombardi

#82. Leadership rests not only on outstanding ability. It also rests on commitment, loyalty and pride. It rests on followers who are ready to accept guidance. Leadership is the ability to direct people and - more important - to have those people accept that direction.

Vince Lombardi

#83. The man on top of the mountain didn't fall there.

Vince Lombardi

#84. A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.

Vince Lombardi

#85. I think good physical conditioning is essential to any occupation. A man who is physically fit performs better at any job. Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

Vince Lombardi

#86. We will be relentless in our pursuit for perfection. We won't ever be perfect - but in the process we will achieve greatness.

Vince Lombardi

#87. If you are not making mistakes, you are not trying hard enough.

Vince Lombardi

#88. We know how rough the road will be, how heavy here the load will be, we know about the barricades that wait along the track, but we have set our soul ahead upon a certain goal ahead and nothing left from hell to sky shall ever turn us back.

Vince Lombardi

#89. Mental toughness is Spartanism, with all its qualities of self-denial, sacrifice, dedication, fearlessness, and love.

Vince Lombardi

#90. Some need a whip and others a pat on the back and others are better off when they are ignored.

Vince Lombardi

#91. Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities; and while no one individual possesses all of the needed talents that go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader.

Vince Lombardi

#92. Football is and always will be a game of blocking and hitting

Vince Lombardi

#93. While statistics are interesting, they're all in the past.

Vince Lombardi

#94. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price.

Vince Lombardi

#95. The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.

Vince Lombardi

#96. To play this game (football) you must have fire in you, and there is nothing that strokes fire like hate.

Vince Lombardi

#97. [Football is] a game that requires the constant conjuring of animosity.

Vince Lombardi

#98. Brains without competitive hearts are rudderless.

Vince Lombardi

#99. Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity; having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. His leadership is then based on truth and character. There must be truth in the purpose and will power in the character.

Vince Lombardi

#100. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character.

Vince Lombardi