Quotes from John Wooden

happier. The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

I am not what I ought to be, Not what I want to be, Not what I am going to be, But I am thankful that I am better than I used to be. It

What it comes down to, I believe, is that mentoring often involves telling people what they need to hear, rather than what they want to hear. When you are able to be humbly honest with someone about a situation with which you have personal experience—even if you risk angering or hurting that person—you are offering the most valuable gift of all.

Abraham Lincoln. He once said that the best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother.

It took me a long time to understand that even a stubborn mule responds to gentleness.

In game play it was always my philosophy that patience would win out. By that, I meant patience to follow our game plan. If we believed in it, we would wear the opposition down and would eventually get to them. If we broke away from our style, however, and played their style, we would be in trouble. And if we let our emotions, rather than our reason, command the game we would not function effectively.

There is a wonderful, almost mystical, law of nature that says three of the things we want most—happiness, freedom, and peace of mind—are always attained when we give them to others.

You can do more good by being good than any other way.

It's so easy to relax, to cut corners, to let down after you've reached your goal, and begin thinking you can just "turn it on" automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you're there.

I remain convinced to this day that compassion like that—sincerely caring for your players and maintaining an active interest in their lives, concerns, and motivations—is one of the most important qualities a coach can have.

Always try to be the very best that you can be. Learn from others, yes. But don't just try to be better than they are.