Sportsmanship Sayings and Quotes – Inspire Quotes and Sayings

Sportsmanship Sayings and Quotes

  • “A winner never whines.” —Paul Brown
  • “True sportsmanship is excellence in motion.” —Lorii Myers
  • “Win or lose, do it fairly.” —Knute Rockne
  • “A lion never roars after a kill.” —Dean Smith
  • “There is no such thing as sportsmanship.” —Terrell Davis
  • “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” —Vince Lombardi
  • “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” —Billie Jean King
  • “For me, being memorable is more important than winning.” —Ricki Lake
  • “Losing is no disgrace if you’ve given your best.” —Jim Palmer
  • “When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less.” —Paul Brown
  • “Sometimes you lose. Nothing you can do but admit it.” —Sarah Dessen
  • “Always imitate the behavior of the winners when you lose.” —George Meredith
  • “The determination to win is the better part of winning.” —Daisaku Ikeda
  • “If you win through bad sportsmanship that’s no real victory.” —Babe Didrikson Zaharias
  • “Sportsmanship, next to the Church, is the greatest teacher of morals.” —Herbert Hoover
  • “Thats the beauty of sport. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry.” —Pep Guardiola
  • “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.” —Knute Rockne
  • “It’s not so important who starts the game but who finishes it.” —John Wooden
  • “To play is in the mind. To win is in the heart.” —Jennifer McCombs
  • “It is better to know defeat than to know nothing at all.” —Liam D’Souza
  • “Win or lose, I’ll feel good about myself. That’s what is important.” —Mary Docter
  • “I would prefer even to lose with honor than to win by cheating.” —Sophocles
  • “Winning is only half of it. Having fun is the other half.” —Bum Phillips
  • “Victory is in the quality of the competition, not just the final score.” —Mike Marshall
  • “The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.” —Ernie Banks
  • “I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” —Michael Jordan
  • “Never let a win get to your head, or a loss to your heart.” —Chuck D
  • “Sportsmanship is making sure you have respect for the guy you’re playing across from.” —Warren Moon
  • “There is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called sportsmanship.” —Aldo Leopold
  • “It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.” —Mark Twain
  • “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” —Lyndon B. Johnson
  • “The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” —Robert Green Ingersoll
  • “Winning is about heart, not just legs. It’s got to be in the right place.” —Lance Armstrong
  • “Sometimes I think sportsmanship is a little bit forgotten in place of the individual attention.” —Cal Ripken, Jr.
  • “It is your response to winning and losing that makes you a winner or a loser.” —Harry Sheehy
  • “It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up.” —Vince Lombardi
  • “I never thought about losing, but now that it’s happened, the only thing is to do it right.” —Muhammad Ali
  • “Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player.” —John Wooden
  • “If you spend a lot of time on sportsmanship, you’re going to spend a lot of time losing.” —Glenn Dobbs
  • “No matter if you win or lose, the most important thing in life is to enjoy what you have.” —Dong Dong
  • “Don’t praise your own good shots. Leave that function to your partner who, if a good sport, will not be slow in performing it.” —Harry Vardon
  • “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.” —Arthur Ashe
  • “What winning is to me is not giving up, is no matter what’s thrown at me, I can take it. And I can keep going.” —Patrick Swayze
  • “Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation.Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” —John Wooden
  • “Every game, you have so many people watching you. You can show good sportsmanship by helping other players up, and not talking back to coaches and referees.” —Kelly Fry
  • “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes – not that you won or lost – But HOW you played the Game.” —Grantland Rice
  • “Sportsmanship for me is when a guy walks off the court and you really can’t tell whether he won or lost, when he carries himself with pride either way.” —Jim Courier
  • “I think sportsmanship is knowing that it is a game that we are only as a good as our opponents, and whether you win or lose, to always give 100 percent.” —Sue Wicks
  • “Sportsmanship is not just about being nice. It is much more important than that. It’s about realizing that you could not compete without an opponent and that she has the same goals as you.” —Stephanie Deibler