120+ Vince Lombardi Quotes On Strength and Hard Work

By Katee Fletcher

Vince Lombardi is remembered as the best American football coach in history. He was an executive in the National Football League and is also in the Professional Football Hall of Fame. Here are some Vince Lombardi quotes you can share with friends, family, and football lovers.

The Beginning of Football

Famous football coach, Vince Lombardi, was born on June 11th, 1913, in Brooklyn, New York. He was born and raised in a strict Italian-Catholic household as the oldest of five. At age 15, he left home to pursue priesthood at Cathedral College of Immaculate Conception.

Two years later, he decided to change paths, transferring to St. Francis Preparatory School, where he starred as the fullback on the football team. He then went on to study and play football at Fordham University, where he graduated magna cum laude. He found work at a finance company after graduation and also attended law school at night. However, he soon realized that wanted to continue pursuing his passion for football.

The Coaching Life

His coaching career began at St. Cecilia High School in New Jersey, where he taught and acted as the football team’s assistant coach. During this time, he started a family, marrying Marie Planitz in 1940, with whom he had two children, Vince Jr., and Susan. After eight years at St. Cecilia, Lombardi took an offer to be the head coach at his alma mater, Fordham University. From there, he moved up to be the coach at West Point University and soon after, as an NFL coach for the Giants.

During his time coaching the Giants, Lombardi established himself as one of the most desirable coaches in the league. He led them to 5 winning seasons and a league championship in 1956. After spending a few years with the Giants, Lombardi signed a contract in 1959 to become the Green Bay Packers’ new coach. His regimented coaching style and a knack for encouragement and inspiration helped him turn the Packers into an envied team.

During Lombardi’s years as their coach, he led them to five NFL championship wins and victories in Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II. After his many accolades, Lombardi took a year off from coaching, then returned in 1969 as a coach for the Washington Redskins. He led the Redskins to their first winning season in a decade. Sadly, these last wins would mark the end of Lombardi’s coaching career.

The End Of An Era

In June of 1970, Vince Lombardi was diagnosed with an aggressive form of colon cancer. Ten weeks later, on September 3rd, 1970, he passed away at age 57. His death saddened many, attracting thousands to attend his funeral.

He was entered into the Professional Football Hall of Fame on July 31st, 1971, dedicated with his name on each Super Bowl trophy. Here are some famous Vince Lombardi quotes about leadership, football, and overcoming life’s challenges.

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Football

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

“Go back through football, and you will see that the team with the best defense wins.” -Vince Lombardi

“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious.” -Vince Lombardi

“It is and has always been an American zeal to be first in everything we do and to win…” -Vince Lombardi

“I’ve never been with a losing team in my life, and I don’t think I’ll start now.” -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

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

“Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player and motivate.” -Vince Lombardi

“Running a football team is no different from running any other kind of organization…” -Vince Lombardi

“After all the cheers have died down, and the stadium is empty after the headlines have been written, and after you are back in the quiet of your room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser, and after all the pomp and fanfare have faded, the enduring thing that is left is the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.” -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

“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

“If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?” -Vince Lombardi

“The objective is to win: fairly, squarely, decently, win by the rules, but still win.” -Vince Lombardi

“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” -Vince Lombardi

“Teams do not go physically flat; they go mentally stale.” -Vince Lombardi

“A team that thinks it’s going to lose is going to lose.” -Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Leadership

“The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.” -Vince Lombardi

“It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men. Men respond to leadership in a most remarkable way, and once you have won his heart, he will follow you anywhere.” -Vince Lombardi

“A disciplined person is one who follows the will of the one who gives the orders.” -Vince Lombardi

“Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity; having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. His leadership is then based on truth and character. There must be truth in the purpose and will power in the character.” -Vince Lombardi

“Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow.” -Vince Lombardi

“They call it coaching, but it is teaching. You do not just tell them…you show them the reasons.” -Vince Lombardi

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

“Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities. And while no one individual possesses all the needed talents that go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader.” -Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Teamwork

“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses or the problems of modern society.” -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

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

“The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.” -Vince Lombardi

“Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another, and of strength to be derived by unity.” -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

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Hard Work and Strength

“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” -Vince Lombardi

“Leaders are made; they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.” -Vince Lombardi

“There is no substitute for work.” -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

“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” -Vince Lombardi

“We run to win, not just to be in the race.” -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

“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

“There is something good in men that really yearn for discipline.” -Vince Lombardi

“The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.” -Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Growth and Facing Adversity

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.” -Vince Lombardi

“We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.” -Vince Lombardi

“Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.” -Vince Lombardi

“If you can accept losing, you can’t win. If you can walk, you can run. No one is ever hurt. Hurt is in your mind.” -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

“The difference between men is in energy, in the strong will, in the settled purpose, and in the invincible determination.” -Vince Lombardi

“Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off of the goal.” -Vince Lombardi

“Second place is meaningless. You can’t always be first, but you have to believe that you should have been– that you were never beaten– that time just ran out on you.” -Vince Lombardi

“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” -Vince Lombardi

“In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.” -Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Success and Winning

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

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

“It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.” -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

“If you’ll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives.” -Vince Lombardi

“Inches make champions.” -Vince Lombardi

“If you can’t shrug off a loss, you can’t be a winner.” -Vince Lombardi

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” -Vince Lombardi

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” -Vince Lombardi

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

“Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win, and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible. Most important, you must pay the price to stay there.” -Vince Lombardi

“Success demands singleness of purpose.” -Vince Lombardi

“If you don’t think you’re a winner, you don’t belong here.” -Vince Lombardi

“To achieve success, whatever the job we have, we must pay a price.” -Vince Lombardi

“There’s only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. I do, and I demand that my players do.” -Vince Lombardi

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it is an all the time thing. You don’t do things right once in a while… you do them right all the time.” -Vince Lombardi

“Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” -Vince Lombardi

“Getting to the final is everything, and winning is icing on the cake.” -Vince Lombardi

“Success is based upon a spiritual quality, a power to inspire others.” -Vince Lombardi

“Mental toughness is essential to success.” -Vince Lombardi

“Watch your thoughts; they become your beliefs. Watch your beliefs; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character.” -Vince Lombardi

“Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” -Vince Lombardi

“Winning is not everything– but making the effort to win is.” -Vince Lombardi

“All right, Mister, let me tell you what winning means… you’re willing to go longer, work harder, give more than anyone else.” -Vince Lombardi

“Winning isn’t everything– it’s the only thing.” -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

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Confidence, Mental Strength, and Character

“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

“A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive, and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.” -Vince Lombardi

“To be successful, a man must exert an effective influence upon his brothers and upon his associates, and the degree in which he accomplishes this depends on the personality of the man. The incandescence of which he is capable. The flame of fire that burns inside him. The magnetism which draws the heart of other men to him.” -Vince Lombardi

“Unless a man believes in himself and makes a total commitment to his career and puts everything he has into it– his mind, his body, his heart– what’s a life worth to him?” -Vince Lombardi

“The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel– these are the things what will endure, and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events themselves.” -Vince Lombardi

“Confidence is contagious; so is lack of confidence.” -Vince Lombardi

“You defeat defeatism with confidence.” -Vince Lombardi

“Confidence is contagious, and so is lack of confidence, and a customer will recognize both.” -Vince Lombardi

“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” -Vince Lombardi

“Character is just another word for having a perfectly disciplined and educated will. A person can make his own character by blending these elements with an intense desire to achieve excellence. Everyone is different in what I will call magnitude, but the capacity to achieve character is still the same.” -Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Life

“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

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

“I’m not afraid to die– it’s just that I had so much left to do in this world.” -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

“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

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” -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

Vince Lombardi Quotes on Faith and Religion

“I believe in God.” -Vince Lombardi

“I derived my strength from daily mass and communion.” -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

“There are three things that are important to every man in this locker room. His God, his family, and the Green Bay Packers. In that order.” -Vince Lombardi

“Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.” -Vince Lombardi

Other Vince Lombardi Quotes

“If you aren’t fired up with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm.” -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

“Brains without competitive hearts are rudderless.” -Vince Lombardi

“Before I can embrace freedom, I should be aware of what duties I have.” -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

“Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” -Vince Lombardi

“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.” -Vince Lombardi

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