Vince Lombardi Quotes & Sayings

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

True perfection is unattainable, but if you chase perfection you will catch excellence! — Vince Lombardi

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

Success is not a sometimes thing. In other words, you don't do what is right once in awhile, but all the time. Success is a habit. Winning is a habit. — Vince Lombardi

Champions make their own luck. — Vince Lombardi

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. — Vince Lombardi

Mental toughness is essential to success. — Vince Lombardi

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

The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall. — Vince Lombardi

I derived my strength from daily mass and communion. — Vince Lombardi

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

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. — Vince Lombardi

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. — Vince Lombardi

In order to succeed, this group will need a singleness of purpose, they will need a dedication, and they will have to convince all of their prospects of the willingness to sacrifice. — Vince Lombardi

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

Don't succumb to excuses. Go back to the job of making the corrections and forming the habits that will make your goal possible. — Vince Lombardi

Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind-you could call it character in action. — Vince Lombardi

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

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

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

When you travel with the team and you eat with the team - you eat what the team eats. — Vince Lombardi

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

Beat your opponent where he is strongest, and you demoralize him. — Vince Lombardi

Preparedness is the ultimate confidence builder. — Vince Lombardi

Football is a game of cliches, and I believe in every one of them. — Vince Lombardi

Having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. — Vince Lombardi

The successful man is himself. To be successful, you've got to be honest with yourself. — Vince Lombardi

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

They may not love you at the time, but they will later. — Vince Lombardi

Choose to achieve perfection. We won't achieve it because perfection is impossible. But by pursuing perfection, we will achieve excellence. — Vince Lombardi

Offensively, you do what you do best and you do it again and again. Defensively, you attack your opponent's strength. — Vince Lombardi

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

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

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

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

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

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have. — Vince Lombardi

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

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

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

Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow — Vince Lombardi

Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist but football is only two things - blocking and tackling. — Vince Lombardi

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

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. — Vince Lombardi

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

I've been in football all my life, gentlemen, and I don't know whether I'm particularly qualified to be a part of anything else, except I consider it a great game, a game of many assets, by the way, and I think a symbol of what this country's best attributes are: courage and stamina and a coordinated efficiency or teamwork. — Vince Lombardi

Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. — Vince Lombardi

Many more things would be accomplished if we didn't consider them impossible. — Vince Lombardi

The only true satisfaction a player receives is the satisfaction that comes from being part of a successful team, regardless of his personal accomplishments. — Vince Lombardi

The will to win ... the will to achieve ... goes dry and arid without continuous renewal. — Vince Lombardi

It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up. — Vince Lombardi

Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is. — Vince Lombardi

Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate. — Vince Lombardi

I will demand a commitment to excellence and to victory, and that is what life is all about. — Vince Lombardi

Hard work is the price we must pay for success — Vince Lombardi

Inches make a champion. — Vince Lombardi

Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. — Vince Lombardi

Leaders are made, they are not born — Vince Lombardi

There is something good in men that really yearn for discipline. — Vince Lombardi

Some need a whip and others a pat on the back and others are better off when they are ignored. — Vince Lombardi

At many a moment on many a day, I am convinced that pro football must be a game for madmen, and I must be one of them. — Vince Lombardi

Morally, the life of the organization must be of exemplary nature. This is one phase where the organization must not have criticism. — Vince Lombardi

Everyone Has A Will To Win But Very Few Have The Will To Prepare To Win — Vince Lombardi

Mental toughness is Spartanism, with all its qualities of self-denial, sacrifice, dedication, fearlessness, and love. — Vince Lombardi

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

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence. — Vince Lombardi

When we place our dependence in God, we are unencumbered, and we have no worry. In fact, we may even be reckless, insofar as our part in the production is concerned. This confidence, this sureness of action, is both contagious and an aid to the perfect action. The rest is in the hands of God - and this is the same God, gentlemen, who has won all His battles up to now. — Vince Lombardi

Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it. — Vince Lombardi

We shall play every game to the hilt with every ounce of fiber we have in our bodies. — Vince Lombardi

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

You defeat defeatism with confidence. — Vince Lombardi

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

Football is like life - it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority. — Vince Lombardi

Before I can embrace freedom, I should be aware of what duties I have. — Vince Lombardi

I've never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline — Vince Lombardi

Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. — Vince Lombardi

There's only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. — Vince Lombardi

If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score? — Vince Lombardi

One's desire, not ability, determines success. — Vince Lombardi

There is no substitute for work. — Vince Lombardi

The strength of the group is in the will of the leader, and the will is character in action. — Vince Lombardi

Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. — Vince Lombardi

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

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

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

I would say that the quality of each man's life is the full measure of that man's commitment of excellence and victory - whether it be football, whether it be business, whether it be politics or government or what have you. — Vince Lombardi

Most important of all, to be successful in life demands that a man make a personal commitment to excellence and to victory, even though the ultimate victory can never be completely won. Yet that victory might be pursued and wooed with every fiber of our body, with every bit of our might and all our effort. And each week, there is a new encounter; each day, there is a new challenge. — Vince Lombardi

We live in an age fit for heroes. No time has ever offered such perils or prizes ... The test of this century will be whether man confuses the growth of wealth and power with the growth of spirit and character. — Vince Lombardi

No leader, however great, can long continue unless he wins battles. The battle decides all. — Vince Lombardi

I hold it more important to hold the player's confidence than their affection. — Vince Lombardi

They do not truly love who do not show their love. — Vince Lombardi

If you don't think you're a winner, you don't belong here. — Vince Lombardi

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

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

A man is known by the company he owns. — Vince Lombardi

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. — Vince Lombardi

I don't think there's a punch-line scheduled, is there? — Vince Lombardi

Character is the direct result of mental attitude. I believe that character is higher than the intellect. I believe that leadership is in sacrifice, in self-denial, in humility and in the perfectly disciplined will. This is the distinction between great and little men. — Vince Lombardi

There's no such thing as Perfection. But, in striving for perfection, we can achieve excellence. — Vince Lombardi

Inches make champions. — Vince Lombardi