Quotes & Sayings About Winning Or Losing

In tennis, at the end of the day you're a winner or a loser. You know exactly where you stand ... I don't need that anymore. I don't need my happiness, my well-being, to be based on winning and losing. — Chris Evert

I have a basic philosophy that I've tried to follow during my coaching career. Whether you're winning or losing, it's important to always be yourself. You can't change because of the circumstances around you. — Cotton Fitzsimmons

But failure and success are labels placed upon people's lives the way a child values winning a game whether or not they have to bend the rules in order to do it. But life is not a game and the rules cannot be bent without repercussions that prove damaging later on. We must play the game for all we are worth, and we must play it fairly. We play and lose and play again, over and over. We lose and we pick up and start again a little wiser. We learn the game a little better in the playing, learn lessons for the next game. And should we lose today it is only a step towards the winning of the larger game. We move our piece on the board one step at a time, but it is all part of some larger process. — James Rozoff

War was so many things, and not the least of which confusion. What was wrong? What was right, for that matter?
Was killing right or wrong? Brave or cowardly? Human nature or unnatural behavior of creatures too smart for their own good?
Loyalty, betrayal, hate, love, fear, friendship, teamwork, violence. War was connected to all of these. Hard work, sadness, suffering, discipline, chaos, questions, few answers, strategy, bravery, foolishness, death, life.
And both winning and losing were only two small aspects of the word war. — Kenzie Kovacs-Szabo

Gambling is a fascinating sport. When you are winning, you are like a human hurricane, nothing can stand in your way. You defy the Gods, or do you? In fact you impress them, as Bukowski said. When you are losing, you are an insignificant gimp. — Robert Black

We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything - not about winning or losing - but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. That is what we are doing when we sit down to meditate. That attitude spreads into the rest of our lives. — Pema Chodron

It's not winning or losing. It's the friends and the people that you meet along the way. — Summer Altice

I have three dogs at home. Even after losing a series or winning a series, they treat me the same way. — Mahendra Singh Dhoni

When you are gambling, though you probably do not know it, your mind is on the tide, the ebb and flow of the Universe, and there is no way to fight it. Going with the flow is the only option, so there is no point in struggling against it, but, it will tell you how you sit with God, or the Universe, at that particular time in your life. — Robert Black

I used to get stressed out all the time when I thought winning was important. I wanted to try to win and help my kids win. Once I figured out it wasn't about winning or losing, it was about teaching these kids about being men, that's when I started to relax. — Snoop Dogg

Leaving wasn't a personal thing where I intentionally wanted to stick it to management or anyone. This is business. I felt I should have been rewarded for helping the Indians turn around a half century of losing. It was a shame they decided to treat me that way, after all I did for them. I helped this team go from one-hundred six losses to basically one-hundred six wins and into the World Series. And what do I get for it? Nothing. — Albert Belle

We play a sport. It's a game. At the end of the day, that's all it is, is a game. It doesn't make you any better or any worse than anybody else. So by winning a game, you're no better. By losing a game, you're no worse. I think by keeping that mentality, it really keeps things in perspective for me to treat everybody the same. — Tim Tebow

Inner peace has no correlation with success or failure - winning or losing. — Debasish Mridha

Gates loved competing- and winning. Just as importantly, he hated losing. He thrived on competition, as long as he was playing or doing something he was good at, and relished opportunities to prove himself, physically and mentally. — James Wallace

Aikido practice is a method of incorporating the fundamentals of Great Harmony, Great Love, and Gratitude into one's own heart. To integrate these fundamentals into Aikido technique, I have to eliminate the sense of winning and losing. The feeling of completion must be completely transmuted into the heart of gratitude and harmony. If I am able to do that, I will transcend issues of relative strength or skill. — Linda Holiday

We should tell our kids to just have fun, participate and not get bent on winning or losing. But every coach, when they say that, they say it tongue in cheek, 'Don't worry about winning': If you win I'll get you ice cream, but if you lose I'm going to pout in the car. — Bode Miller

winning or losing an agonist encounter has a dramatic impact on future aggressive behavior. Winners are more likely to initiate attacks against unknown opponents, whereas losers are more circumspect and likely to retreat from unfamiliar conspecifics, adopting an opportunistic strategy, picking and choosing their fights. In the worst case scenario, animals socially subjugated by constant threat and attack from dominant conspecifics develop a submissive phenotype, showing little or no aggressive behavior, essentially eliminating themselves from the gene pool. — Randy J. Nelson

The person of winning personality attracts his pupils who will do anything for his sake and are fond and eager in all their ways, docile to the point where personality is submerged, and they live on the smiles, perish on the averted looks, of the adored teacher. Parents look on with a smile and think that all is well; but Bob or Mary is losing that growing time which should make a self-dependent, self-ordered person, and is day by day becoming a parasite who can go only as he is carried, the easy prey of fanatic or demagogue. — Charlotte M. Mason

It does not take a great deal of imagination or courage to believe that God is on your side when you are prospering or winning; it takes a great deal of courage and imagination to believe that God is on your side when you are suffering or losing. — Peter J. Gomes

It doesn't matter if you're winning or losing. What matters is that you're playing. — Lisa M. Cronkhite

It was too late, though: I was already too smart for the therapist. Or maybe I was never amenable to therapy. Either way, I wasn't going to change. I had already chosen to view the world as a set of opportunities at winning or losing in a zero-sum game, and I used every encounter to gain information to my advantage. — M.E. Thomas

Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose. — R.H. Blyth

When Peter made mistakes, Wendy cheered for him anyway. One afternoon he beat her and everyone else in a race organized by Slightly. She only laughed and squeezed his wrist with easy affection and told him how fast he was. She was so undeterred by losing that it made the boys wonder if winning was exactly what they'd thought it was or if in England it was different. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

There's no winning or losing in this game, only playing, endless playing, you want your adversary to be strong not weak, smart not dumb, you're delighted to trick him and delighted to be tricked by him, boy learns from girl, white learns from black, old learns from young, the teaching is the doing is the beauty is the grace is the humor, endlessly you go on learning, smiling, moving, feinting, never missing a beat. Gingare, the dance of life: the controlled, prolonged, sustained, ineffable excitement of capoeira is like an endless climax. — Nancy Huston

Losing fights, or even winning fights, can be heartbreaking, and you can throw that away, but the truth is that it does make our lives better. — Adam Duritz

Going out and playing football or baseball with the boys, when I was a tomboy, was a great way to learn about winning and losing, and most girls didn't have that experience. — Hillary Clinton

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it. — William Hazlitt

What happens if you lose?" Jeremy pressed.
"I don't see it as winning or losing. I'm just looking for a middle ground," he [Justin] said. "I get that technology is convenient and has its benefits. We definitely can't live without it. We can't go back to living in caves. But most people are so plugged in, they're not even living in the real world. Our lives aren't grounded by anything. Being too dependent on something makes you a slave to it. And I sure as hell won't worship a digital screen. So I'm looking for a halfway point. A balance. It's not just about ending digital school. It's about having a choice. — Katie Kacvinsky

All your winning or losing of a good conscience, is in your first buying; for such is the deceitfulness of sin, and the cunning conveyance of that old serpent, that if his head be once entering in, his whole body will easily follow after; and if he make you handsomely to swallow gnats at first, he will make you swallow camels ere all be done. Oh, happy they who dash the little ones of Babylon against the stones (Ps. 137:9)! — George Gillespie

The desire to maximize the number of winning trades (or minimize the number of losing trades) works against the trader. The success rate of trades is the least important performance statistic and may even be inversely related to performance. — William Eckhardt

During the season, fans tend to observe, in as many complicated ways and with as much detail as we can come up with, only that a winning team is very good, and a losing team is hopeless. My mother or Prince Charles or probably a Martian could make the same observation, but their views would be discounted on the grounds of ignorance. — Nick Hornby

There were umpires everywhere, men who said who was winning or losing the theoretical battle, who was alive adn who was dead.
The umpire had comical news. The congregation had been theoretically spotted from the air by a theoretical enemy. They were all theoretically dead now. The theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal.
Remembering this incident years later, Billy was struck by what a Tralfamadorian adventure with death that had been, to be dead and to eat at the same time. — Kurt Vonnegut

I didn't have to win, and winning wasn't important to me. Being world champion wasn't important to me. What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it. — Dwayne Johnson

I don't know how to put it, but yet you know we have so many people who the way they look at life, the way they work depends on what happens, us winning or losing. It's kind of crazy. So, I kind of got caught up in that, I'm gonna try to stay away from that. — Mike Ditka

When you win, you don't examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you've worked and how physically talented you are; it doesn't particularly define you beyond those characteristics.
Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among other things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?
If you're willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are. — Lance Armstrong

Don't judge a person on winning or losing. — Dong Dong

Few American commentators evaluated MacArthur's strategic sense at various stages in his generalship in Korea; it was instead the perception of whether he was winning or losing that mattered most to the public. — Victor Davis Hanson

You can't ever totally know what's inside of someone else, or see the kind of will someone like Magic has. You have to rely on your instincts to find people who hate losing and know how to win. — Jerry West

Winning or losing an argument, receiving an acceptance or rejection, is no proof of the validity or value of personal identity. One may be wrong, mistaken, or a poor craftsman, or just ignorant - but this is no indication of the true worth of one's total human identity: past, present and future! — Sylvia Plath

Thou must (in commanding and winning, or serving and losing, suffering or triumphing) be either anvil or hammer. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If I lost all, at least I would have played for it. It had always been my philosophy that one must play, or be a loser two-fold. — Anna Freeman

To be successful as an investor or a business owner, you have to be emotionally neutral to winning and losing. Winning and losing are just part of the game. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

Perpetuating success or sliding into decline is the result of many intersecting forces that reinforce one another directly and indirectly. They are both cause and effect of winning or losing. Winning generates positive forces, losing generates negative forces. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

In training, there is no winning or losing. There is only learning. — Tucker Max

Don't focus on the outcome, when you focus on the outcome it creates anxiety and it builds. I just need to enjoy the moment and let it be. If I just fight I know I'm going to go out there and perform and do it my best. Don't focus on winning or losing. — Luke Rockhold

I wanted to win every single game I ever played in or coached. Absolutely. I wanted to win. But, I understood that ultimately the winning or losing may not be under my control. What was under my control was how I prepared myself and our team. I judged my success, my "winning," on that. It just made more sense. — John Wooden

The winner has a different memory and the loser has a different memory of the same event. Where then is the question of a shared memory? What is history? Where is the notion of a We? Unless, the victory has the grace to accept the loser into his moment of glory or the loser has the grace to accede the winner his moment of glory ? — Srividya Srinivasan

To sum up - i f you want to be more creat ive, star t loving yoursel f enough to give
yoursel f permission to fai l . In fact , bet ter yet , don' t even wor ry about winning or
losing. Just DO. — Scott Bourne

The key isn't winning
or losing, it's making the attempt. I may never be what I ought to be, want to be
but how will I know unless I try? Sure, it's scary, but what's the alternative? Stagnation - A safer, more terrible form of death. Not of the body, but of the spirit. An animal knows what it is, and accepts it. A man may know what he is
but he questions. He dreams. He strives. Changes. Grows. — Chris Claremont

There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in, whether it's a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things. — Gary Gygax

In the novelist's profession, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won, and critics' praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matter. What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can't fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. — Haruki Murakami

When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. — Sun Tzu

Competitiveness must be focused exclusively on the process of what you are doing rather than the result of that effort (the so-called winning or losing). — John Wooden

To live a life of one's own choosing Is not about the winning or losing It is living each day for the thrill of the ride, Not what awaits on the other side. Taking the process as the essence of what you do Not what happens when the effort is through The joy of each step, a source of elation The greatest gift of God's creation. A poem by Karen Lyons Kalmenson — David Mezzapelle

I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can't have both. Not at the same time. Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage. A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we're defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you're not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback. — Brene Brown

Winning or losing, it's always something special and something you'll remember, even more so when the match was as dramatic as it was today. It's even more memorable when I see my kids there with my wife and everything. That's what touched me the most, to be quite honest. The disappointment of the match itself went pretty quickly. — Roger Federer

Even if you don't win you learn. So there's no losing. You win the fight or you learn. — Renzo Gracie

Remember, that choosing to stay on the ground is a choice to facilitate a relationship, to honor it. You don't play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship ... It is not about winning and losing, but about love and respect. — Wm. Paul Young

The promise of American capitalism is that it makes people richer, freer and more independent. But since the introduction of Fed, the currency in which Americans keep score has so addled the figures, we scarcely know if we are winning or losing. The dollar we knew as a child - in the 1950's - is only worth a tenth as much today. — Bill Bonner

I think fashion is about longevity and doing your work. It isn't about winning or losing. It's about process, keeping it going. — Alber Elbaz

Do no be ashamed to make a temporary withdrawal from the field if you see that your enemy is stronger than you; it is not winning or losing a single battle that matters, but how the war ends. — Paulo Coelho

The only thing even in this world is the number of hours in a day. The difference in winning or losing is what you do with those hours. — Woody Hayes

When a writer first begins to write, he or she feels the same
first thrill of achievement that the young gambler or oboe
player feels: winning a little, losing some, the gambler sees the
glorious possibilities, exactly as the young oboist feels an indescribable
thrill when he gets a few phrases to sound like real
music, phrases implying an infinite possibility for satisfaction
and self-expression. As long as the gambler or oboist is only
playing at being a gambler or oboist, everything seems possible.
But when the day comes that he sets his mind on becoming a professional, suddenly he realizes how much there is to learn, how little he knows. — John Gardner

Contrary to what our brains are telling us, there's no mystical force that imbues a winner with a streak of luck, nor is there a cosmic sense of justice that ensures that a loser's luck will turn around. The universe doesn't care one whit whether you've been winning or losing; each roll of the dice is just like every other. — Charles Seife

How you run the race - your planning, preparation, practice, and performance - counts for everything. Winning or losing is a by-product, and aftereffect, of that effort. — John Wooden

There is no losing in Jiu-Jitsu. You either win or you learn. — Carlos Gracie Jr.

It's not about winning or losing a competition, it's about beating the doubt from within yourself and knowing at the end of each day you are one step closer to your goals. — Jonathan Horton

Do not worry about winning or losing; think of what you will gain. — M.F. Moonzajer

One becomes vulnerable when one stops to think about winning, losing, taking advantage, impressing or disregarding the opponent. When the mind stops, even for a single instant, the body freezes, and free, fluid movement is lost. — Kisshomaru Ueshiba

Winning or losing achieves the same result
change. — Shannon L. Alder

Austin believes that winning or losing in binary is meaningless when there's a high score to beat. — Robyn Schneider

I really enjoy playing with someone else and whether it's chess or tennis or games, I love card games. I love that, but I think there's something so important to gain from winning and losing and learning how to lose and how you can be better from that. — Hilary Swank

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of each of us would some day depend upon our winning or losing a game of chess. Do you not think that we should all consider it to be our primary duty to learn at least the names of the pieces and how to position them on the chessboard? — Aldous Huxley

Successful or not, acts of physical courage always bring honor. It is the smaller forms of valor - standing up for principle at the risk of social disapproval, economic loss or injury to career - that require the greatest moral will power. Since there is usually little upside to winning and a significant and often lasting downside to losing, moral courage often requires as much character as physical bravery. — Michael Josephson

It's about how the players play and compete. I know everybody is going to equate that on winning or losing, like they always do, but if we play hard and compete well in the game .. then I think we are building on something. — Nick Saban

Become a master of your intellect as a charioteer masters his horses and you will realize it is not about the war, it is not about fighting or not fighting, it is not about winning or losing, but it is about taking decisions and discovering the truth about yourself. When you do this, there will be no fear, there will be no ego; you will be at peace, even in the midst of what the deluded call war. — Devdutt Pattanaik

Life has to be in the moment, spontaneous and venerable. There isn't any winning or losing. Life itself, as it flowers in depth and subtlety, is the reward, and it isn't always an easy or fun process. We must learn to see that the issue of happiness is irrelevant. The relevant quest is the expansion of consciousness. — Richard Moss

It's not about winning or losing, but love and respect. — Max Lucado

My comeback was not about winning or losing; it was about the feeling of being able to compete at top level again. — Thomas Muster

It's pointless to focus on others, as we can only control ourselves. I set a high bar and then it is my own private race. No one knows I'm winning or losing but me. — Jewel

There is nothing left to seek for in this world when it can be exchanged for another one. No thought of gain or loss, winning or losing, success or failure ever had any meaning. Fantasy is not real and dreaming is not Being One. You are ready to Awaken to Oneness. And as you awaken the whole world awakens as well. For the world was never more than a misperception. As perception becomes whole, the single mind sees only wholeness. At last you are ready to see with Inner Vision, and you realize that physical sight was nothing but the illusion of being in the dark. The Light has come and it is time to rejoice! It is time! — David Hoffmeister

We get off track. Capitalism takes us off track. You get off the "real" and get on the "wheel." The "wheel" becomes the winning and losing, the succeeding and failing, the "I will achieve." All that stuff becomes so preoccupying, particularly if you're born with low self-esteem, or no sense of yourself, or even if you're just born in the consumer culture. It's very powerful. — Eve Ensler

Still, in a fight like that, you never know. There's a superhuman element involved. All warriors have to face it; winning or losing is partly a matter of luck. — Eiji Yoshikawa

I was brought up by two people who just said, Whatever it is you're interested in, go do it. There is no winning or losing. You find out when you do it what the experience is. — Kurt Russell

Life does not play with marked cards.Winning or losing is part of it. — Paulo Coelho

People get scared when you try to do something, especially when it looks like you're succeeding. People do not get scared when you're failing. It calms them. But when you're winning, it makes them feel like they're losing or, worse yet, that maybe they should've tried to do something too, but now it's too late. And since they didn't, they want to stop you. You can't let them. — Mindy Kaling

Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril. — Sun Tzu

When you understand what's involved in winning, as do professional gamblers, you'll tend to bet more during a winning streak and less during a losing streak. However, the average person does exactly the opposite: he or she bets more after a series of losses and less after a series of wins. — Van K. Tharp

Rich dad always said, "To be successful as an investor or a business owner, you have to be emotionally neutral to winning and losing. Winning and losing are just part of the game." Quitting — Robert T. Kiyosaki

You didn't win the game of life by losing the least. That would be one of those-what were they called again?-Pyrrhic victories. Real winning was having the most to lose, even if it meant you might lose it all. Even though it meant you would lose it all, sooner or later. — Tommy Wallach

It's not about winning or losing, really," he's saying. "It's just the showing up every day. It's stepping up to the plate and whiffing, and then doing it over and over again, whether you get a hit or not. It's getting up every morning and failing and being disappointed and getting beat up and being let down, and then doing it all over again the next day. — Jennifer E. Smith

There is something that can happen to every athlete and every human being; the instinct to slack off, to give in to pain, to give less than your best; the instinct to hope you can win through luck or through your opponent not doing his best, instead of going to the limit and past your limit where victory is always found. Defeating those negative instincts that are out to defeat us, is the difference between winning and losing - and we all face that battle every day. — Jesse Owens

If it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game, why keep score? — Ron Brackin

On the field I'm trying to play for the glory of God but then also I'm trying to give everything I have and win and compete. And so I think more than just winning or losing, I think He cares about where our hearts are when we're playing. — Tim Tebow

Winning and losing are both very temporary things. Having done one or the other, you move ahead. Gloating over a victory or sulking over a loss is a good way to stand still. — Chuck Knox

Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money. — Ed Seykota

What's the point of dating without games? How do you know if you're winning or losing? — Jerry Seinfeld

There's only winning and losing, and in our society, as in all societies, there's the person that's doing the winning, or there's the person that's facilitating the winning. — Katt Williams

It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything - not about winning or losing - but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. — Pema Chodron

Daring greatly is not about winning or losing. It's about courage. In a world where scarcity and shame dominate and feeling afraid has become second nature, vulnerability is subversive. — Brene Brown