Coach John Wooden’s favourite Life Maxims and Sayings.

Coach John Wooden won ten NCAA national championships in twelve years. John Wooden had a 620-147 record during his 27-year tenure as the head coach of the UCLA Bruins. John is a lover of maxims, sayings and poetry. Here are some of Coach John Wooden’s favourite sayings and maxims.

Be more concerned with what you can do for others than what others can do for you. You’ll be surprised at the results.

1. Happiness begins where selfishness ends.
2. Earn the right to be proud and confident.
3. The best way to improve the team is to improve ourself.
4. Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
5. Discipline yourself, and others won’t need to.
6. Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
7. I will get ready, and then, perhaps, my chance will come.
8. If I am through learning, I am through.
9. If you do not have the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over?
10. The smallest good deed is better than the best intention.
11. The man who is afraid to risk failure seldom has to face success.
12. Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.
13. Time spent getting even would be better spent trying to get ahead.
14. It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
15. Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.
16. There is nothing stronger than gentleness.
17. You discipline those under your supervision to correct, to help, to improve-not to punish.
18. Goals achieved with little effort are seldom worthwhile or lasting.
19. Make sure the team members know they’re working with you, not for you.
20. Be most interested in finding the best way, not in having your own way.
21. What is right is more important than who is right.
22. You handle things. You work with people.
23. As long as you try your best, you are never a failure. That is, unless you blame others.
24. Tell the truth. That way you don’t have to remember a story.
25. Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.
26. If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.
27. Although there is no progress without change, not all change is progress.
28. If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments, we would all be much happier.
29. The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
30. The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do for themselves. (Abraham Lincoln)
31. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
32. Do not permit what you cannot do to interfere with what you can do.
33. Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Character is what you really are; reputation is merely what you are perceived to be.
34. Love is the greatest of all words in our language.
35. Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned about who gets credit.
36. Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them, and your foes won’t believe them.
37. Never be disagreeable just because you disagree.
38. Be slow to criticize and quick to commend.
39. Be more concerned with what you can do for others than what others can do for you. You’ll be surprised at the results.
40. The more concerned we become over the things we can’t control, the less we will do with the things we can control.
41. Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort. We are all imperfect and will fail on occasions, but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
42. Being average means, you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.
43. The time to make friends is before you need them.
44. We are many, but are we much?
45. Nothing can give you greater joy than doing something for another.
46. Material things are not gifts but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of thyself. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
47. You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for another without thought of something in return.
48. Do not mistake activity for achievement.
49. You can do more good by being good than any other way.
50. Forget favors given; remember those received.
51. Make each day your masterpiece.
52. Make friendship a fine art.
53. Treat all people with dignity and respect.
54. Acquire peace of mind by making the effort to become the best of which you are capable.
55. Be fast but do not hurry.