Vince Lombardi: Quotes From a Football Legend

On3 imageby:Dan Morrison•04/25/22•

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Vince Lombardi had a long and incredibly successful career in football. A Brooklyn native, Lombardi attended Fordham, where he was an offensive lineman on the famed ‘Seven Blocks of Granite.’ A couple of years after he moved on from Fordham, during the end of the Great Depression and before World War II began for the United States, he started coaching. At first, Vince Lombardi coached at the high school level before moving up to college. By 1954, Lombardi found himself on the New York Giants, as an assistant coach. By the end of the 1950s, Vince Lombardi was named head coach of the Green Bay Packers. There, he built a dynasty, winning five NFL championships and the first two Super Bowls. In 1970, the trophy was named after him.

A fierce advocate of civil rights, Vince Lombardi couldn’t stand discrimination on his teams. For Lombardi, that included racial and homophobic discrimination. His belief was in treating his players equally and on the basis of their talent.

10 Best Quotes From Vince Lombardi

  1. “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
  2. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”
  3. “We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.”
  4. “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.”
  5. “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”
  6. “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”
  7. “If you’ll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives.”
  8. “Character is just another word for having a perfectly disciplined and educated will.”
  9. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
  10. “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

Inspirational Quotes From Lombardi

  • “The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.”
  • “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”
  • “The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.”
  • “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off of the goal.”
  • “Mental toughness is essential to success.”

Leadership Quotes From Vince Lombardi

  • “Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.”
  • “There is something good in men that really yearn for discipline.”
  • “No leader, however great, can long continue unless he wins battles. The battle decides all.”
  • “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.”
  • “I don’t have any black players, I don’t have any white players, I only have green players.”

Funny Quotes From Lombardi

  • “What the Hell is going on out here?”
  • “If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
  • “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
  • “At many moments in a day, I am convinced that pro football must be a game for madmen, and I must be one of them.”
  • “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”

Team Attitude Quotes From Vince Lombardi

  • “Individual commitment to a group effort–that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
  • “Excellence must be pursued, it must be wooed with all of one’s might and every bit of effort that we have each day there’s a new encounter, each week is a new challenge.”
  • “We run to win, not just to be in the race.”
  • “It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.”
  • “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

Success Quotes From 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 a habit. Unfortunately so is losing.”
  • “Everyone has the will to win but very few have the will to prepare to win.”
  • “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 his commitment, nothing will stop him short of success.”
  • “The objective is to win—fairly, squarely, decently. Win by the rules, but still, win.”
  • “There’s only one way to succeed at anything and that is to give everything.”