To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, to love someone who loves you is everything.
BILL RUSSELLWe learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us-anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.
More Bill Russell Quotes
-
-
What distinguishes a great player is his presence. When he goes on to the court, his presence dominates the atmosphere.
BILL RUSSELL -
Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission. I truly believe in the saying “We work to become, not to acquire.”
BILL RUSSELL -
The magic to a great meeting is all of the work that’s done beforehand.
BILL RUSSELL -
Remember that basketball is a game of habits. If you make the other guy deviate from his habits, you’ve got him.
BILL RUSSELL -
We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.
BILL RUSSELL -
We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us-anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.
BILL RUSSELL -
Commitment separates those who live their dreams from those who live their lives regretting the opportunities they have squandered.
BILL RUSSELL -
The morale and the camaraderie that we had for one another earlier in the year is starting to come under duress because of all the losses. Some of the guys are feeling the pressure now from the last year when they were not successful.
BILL RUSSELL -
I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with a lot of really smart people. The thing that strikes me most about them is how they continue to explore and learn every day. I have tried to apply that approach in my modest career as well.
BILL RUSSELL -
I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.
BILL RUSSELL -
What’s more important than who’s going to be the first black manager is who’s going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.
BILL RUSSELL -
My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.
BILL RUSSELL -
I think that David Stern is probably the greatest commissioner that any sport has ever had in the history of this country.
BILL RUSSELL -
You got to have the killer instinct. If you do not have it, forget about basketball and go into social psychology or something. If you sometimes wonder if you’ve got it, you ain’t got it. No pussycats, please.
BILL RUSSELL -
Don’t knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands!
BILL RUSSELL -
Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.
BILL RUSSELL -
People say it was the greatest individual rivalry they’ve ever seen. I agree with that. Let me assure you that if either Wilt’s or Russ’ coach had ever told one of them he couldn’t guard the other guy, he would have lost that player forever.
BILL RUSSELL -
Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process. There is no luck involved.
BILL RUSSELL -
The last five or six days, I’ve been running. The last two days, I’ve been running pretty hard. Everybody’s got to be someplace.
BILL RUSSELL -
If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach, then what you’re doing becomes art.
BILL RUSSELL -
You can do anything you want to do if you want it bad enough.
BILL RUSSELL -
The most important thing to me is the friends that I’ve made.
BILL RUSSELL -
Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.
BILL RUSSELL -
If a guy pays you five dollars, you give him seven dollars worth of work.
BILL RUSSELL -
We couldn’t sustain it. And they got a lot of kids that can shoot. We just couldn’t close out well enough.
BILL RUSSELL -
The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.
BILL RUSSELL