Michael Jordan quotes: wise words from basketball’s best ever.
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
“If you quit once it becomes a habit. Never quit.”
“What is love? Love is playing every game as if it’s your last.”
“I realize I’m black, but I’d like to be viewed as a person, and that is everybody’s wish.”
“To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you’ll never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don’t isolate.”
“I’m not a Twitter-er, I’m not a twerker, I’m not a Facebook-er, I’m not nothing. I’m old school.”
“You can practice shooting eight hours a day… but if your technique is wrong, then all you do is become very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”
“As athletes, we’re used to reacting quickly. Downtime is the toughest part of the day.”
“Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.”
“You have competition every day because you set such high standards for yourself that you have to go out every day and live up to that.”
“I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.”
“The basketball court for me, during a game, is the most peaceful place I can imagine. On the basketball court, I worry about nothing. When I’m out there, no one can bother me.”
“We all fly. Once you leave the ground, you fly. Some people fly longer than others.”
“I’ve never lost a game; I just ran out of time.”
“When I step onto the court, I don’t have to think about anything. If I have a problem off the court, I find that after I play, my mind is clearer and I can come up with a better solution. It’s like therapy. It relaxes me and allows me to solve problems.”
“I realized that if I was going to achieve anything in life I had to be aggressive. I had to get out there and go for it.”
“I never thought a role model should be negative.”
“Once I made a decision, I never thought about it again.”
“Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.”
“Heart is what separates the good from the great.”
“Every time I feel tired when I’m exercising and training, I close my eyes to see that picture, to see that list [of all-time greats] with my name on it. That usually motivates me to work again.”
“In reality, I never want to grow up.”
“Everybody has talent, but ability takes hard work.”
“I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.”
“I built my talents on the shoulders of someone else’s talent.”
“The game of basketball has been everything to me. My place of refuge, a place I’ve gone when I needed comfort and peace. It’s been the site of intense pain and the most intense feelings of joy and satisfaction. It’s a relationship that has evolved over time and given me the greatest respect and love for the game.”
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
“My challenge when I came back was to face the young talent, dissect their games, and show them maybe that they needed to learn more about the game than just the money aspect.”
“It’s a heavy duty to try to do everything and please everybody. My job was to go out there and play the game of basketball as best I can and provide entertainment for everyone who wanted to watch basketball. Obviously, people may not agree with that; again, I can’t live with what everyone’s impression of what I should or what I shouldn’t do.”
“It’s a habit of mine now, noticing labels, logos, shoes.”
“In any investment, you expect to have fun and make money.”
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
“I think the players win the championship and the organization has something to do with it, don’t get me wrong. But don’t try to put the organization above the players.”
“Live the moment for the moment.”
“I want to wake up every day and do whatever comes in my mind, and not feel pressure or obligations to do anything else in my life.”
“If I had been playing for money I would have complained a long time ago that I was underpaid.”
“I would tell players to relax and never think about what’s at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you’ve lost your focus.”
“The best evaluation I can make of a player is to look in his eyes and see how scared they are.”
“My body could stand the crutches but my mind couldn’t stand the sideline.”
“My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind.”
“Learning’s a gift, even when pain is your teacher.”
“When I was playing, before I retired, I never really understood the appreciation and the respect people gave me. People had treated me like a god or something, and that was very embarrassing.”
“Sometimes you need to get hit in the head to realize that you’re in a fight.”
“The good part about being famous is being able to help people. The hard part is every day you have to be in a good mood, because that is what people expect. You learn to get good at it.”
“I hope the millions of people I’ve touched have the optimism and desire to share their goals and hard work and persevere with a positive attitude.”
“The game is my wife. It demands loyalty and responsibility, and it gives me back fulfillment and peace.”
“Being Michael Jordan means acting the same as I always have.”
“There is no ‘I’ in team but there is in win.”
“I own the guy guarding me.”
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
“The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether it’s proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing.”
“My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”
“Champions do not become champions when they win an event, but in the hours, weeks, months, and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely a demonstration of their championship character.”
“Playing sick. That is so hard to do. It has to be a total mental challenge, as well as a physical challenge.”
“Purchasing the Bobcats is the culmination of my post-playing career goal of becoming the majority owner of an NBA franchise.”
“I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come.”
“If you do the work you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life.”
“In college I never realized the opportunities available to a pro athlete. I’ve been given the chance to meet all kinds of people, to travel and expand my financial capabilities, to get ideas and learn about life, to create a world apart from basketball.”
“My heroes are and were my parents. I can’t see having anyone else as my heroes.”
“Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation.”
“For a competitive junkie like me, golf is a great solution because it smacks you in the face every time you think you have accomplished something. That to me has taken over a lot of the energy and competitiveness for basketball.”
“I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat.”
“Don’t let them drag you down by rumors – just go with what you believe in.”
“I want to be perceived as a guy who played his best in all facets, not just scoring. A guy who loved challenges.”
“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
“There is no such thing as a perfect basketball player, and I don’t believe there is only one greatest player either.”
“Be true to the game, because the game will be true to you. If you try to shortcut the game, then the game will shortcut you. If you put forth the effort, good things will be bestowed upon you. That’s truly the game, and in some ways that’s life too.”
“One day, you might look up and see me playing the game at 50. Don’t laugh. Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.”
“When I was young, I had to learn the fundamentals of basketball. You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals.”
“If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you’ll never change the outcome.”
“Ultimately, if you can say that I’m a bad owner and we’re winning championships, I can live with that. But if we’re not making the playoffs and we’re spending and losing money, I have to look in the mirror and say maybe I’m not taking the necessary steps to doing what it takes to run an organization.”
“There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren’t willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves.”
“I can’t speak for the future. I have no crystal ball.”
“Even when I’m old and gray, I may not be able to play it, but I’ll still love the game.”
Swish. If you thought MJ’s quotes were nothing but net, you might like these too.
