If you really have integrity, there are very few people who can insult you, or honor you.
BILL RUSSELLYou 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.
More Bill Russell Quotes
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Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.
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Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission. I truly believe in the saying “We work to become, not to acquire.”
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My father once told me that anyone who worked for three dollars an hour owed it to himself to put in four dollars’ worth of work.
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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.
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Friendship is a full-time job.
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The only important statistic is the final score.
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The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.
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To me, the most important part of winning is joy. You can win without joy, but winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry. Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight, that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.
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Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process. There is no luck involved.
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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.
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The magic to a great meeting is all of the work that’s done beforehand.
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The most important thing to me is the friends that I’ve made.
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You can do anything you want to do if you want it bad enough.
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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.
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If a guy pays you five dollars, you give him seven dollars worth of work.
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What distinguishes a great player is his presence. When he goes on to the court, his presence dominates the atmosphere.
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My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.
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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.
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Commitment separates those who live their dreams from those who live their lives regretting the opportunities they have squandered.
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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.
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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.
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The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.
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We couldn’t sustain it. And they got a lot of kids that can shoot. We just couldn’t close out well enough.
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On females officiating in the NBA -Incompetence should not be confined to one sex.
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We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.
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Heart in champions has to do with the depth of our motivation and how well your mind and body react to pressure – that is, being able to do what you do best under maximum pain and stress.
BILL RUSSELL