John Wooden Quotes

"Cervantes said the journey's better than the end. Practices, to me, were the journey."

"Young people need models, not critics"

"Failure to prepare is preparing to fail."

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

"Ability is a poor man's wealth."

"I liked quickness very much and Pete had it. And I really liked his acceptance of the role he had. He didn't get to play nearly as much as he expected to when he came, but he accepted it."

"I always tried to make clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere."

"Although I wanted my players to work to win, I tried to convince them they had always won when they had done their best."

"When you get to be 95, [travel] doesn't come as easily."

"What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player."

"There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer."

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

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but what you should have accomplished with your ability."

"Be prepared and be honest."

"Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then."

"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts."