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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.

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

Action Luck Miracle Practice Result Skill Success
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

Children Close Enough Sustainable
The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.
BILL RUSSELL

Believe Block Ideas Opponent Yourself
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

Paper Positive Team Thinking
Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.
BILL RUSSELL

Focus Mental Tough Victory
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

Bear Learning Live Touch Young
Don’t knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands!
BILL RUSSELL

Hands Stand Yourself
We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.
BILL RUSSELL

Decision Power Reality World
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

Forever Greatness People Player Rivalry
If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach, then what you’re doing becomes art.
BILL RUSSELL

Art Level People Reach Yourself
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.
BILL RUSSELL

Father Myself Work Worth
Remember that basketball is a game of habits. If you make the other guy deviate from his habits, you’ve got him.
BILL RUSSELL

Game Habit Himself Remember Yourself
Commitment separates those who live their dreams from those who live their lives regretting the opportunities they have squandered.
BILL RUSSELL

Commitment Live Opportunity Regret Separate
If Shakespeare can compare all of life to a stage, maybe it’s not odd to believe that part of the play can take place on a basketball court.
BILL RUSSELL

Compare Life Play Stage
Friendship is a full-time job.
BILL RUSSELL

Friendship Job One Liner Time
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.
BILL RUSSELL

Happiness Hungry Light Natural Restaurant Sun Win Yourself
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

Champion Heart Motivational Pain Stress
What distinguishes a great player is his presence. When he goes on to the court, his presence dominates the atmosphere.
BILL RUSSELL

Atmosphere Dominate Greatness Player Presence
The magic to a great meeting is all of the work that’s done beforehand.
BILL RUSSELL

Greatness Hands Magic Work
To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, to love someone who loves you is everything.
BILL RUSSELL

Feeling True
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

Career Fortunate Learning Myself People Smart Work
I think that David Stern is probably the greatest commissioner that any sport has ever had in the history of this country.
BILL RUSSELL

Commission Country Greatness Thinking
On females officiating in the NBA -Incompetence should not be confined to one sex.
BILL RUSSELL

Female Oneself Sex
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

Command Early Loss Moral Pressure Success
Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission. I truly believe in the saying “We work to become, not to acquire.”
BILL RUSSELL

Experience Learning Mission Time Work
If a guy pays you five dollars, you give him seven dollars worth of work.
BILL RUSSELL

Man Pay Work Worth Yourself
My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.
BILL RUSSELL

Library Myself Possession Prize

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bill Russell Quotes