A Quote by Joe Paterno

A hard-fought, well-fought, hairline-close game is as classical in sports as tragedy is in the theater. Victory is contained within defeat, and defeat is contained within victory. That's the way it is in the best of games. What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.

Joe Paterno

Quote Topics

Best Classical Close Contained Counts Defeat Fought Game Games Hard Magnificence Sports Struggle Theater Tragedy Victory Way Well Within

Quote Author

Joe Paterno
American - Coach
December 21, 1926 - January 22, 2012

What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.

Joe Paterno

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

John Steinbeck

Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

There are no borders in this struggle to the death. We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, because a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory, just as any country's defeat is a defeat for all of us.

Che Guevara

What is a defeat? It is just a good opportunity to make a new start, nothing else! Defeat is by no means a tragedy, but to consider it as a tragedy is in fact the greatest tragedy! In your every defeat, you must know that the paths of the victory never disappear; try those roads again!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time. [But you must know enough to realise this, lest you focus more on the defeat than finding the lesson you paid for with the defeat. With every defeat and mistake, you have the logical right to get excited about the future when you will understand and be able to apply the lessons and thereby turn defeat and temporary failure into victory and permanent success.]

Robert Collier

In the West, we think of sports and athletics as individual achievement, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat; it all revolves around the ego. This has nothing to do with the Zen of sports and athletics.

Frederick Lenz

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Winston Churchill

I think that it's perhaps harder to learn from victory than it is from defeat. I think that we don't want defeat. We don't want defeat in sport. We don't want defeat in life. How are we going to be beaten? All right. We have to deal with those things. What's going to cause us to lose the game, whatever the game might be?

Bobby Knight

Victory or defeat? It is the slogan of all-powerful militarism in every belligerent nation. And yet, what can victory bring to the proletariat?

Rosa Parks

Defeat is a fact and victory can be a fact. If the idea is good, it will survive defeat, it may even survive the victory.

Stephen Vincent Benet

It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible. Do not then be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.

Henry Ward Beecher

Confuse the enemy. Keep him in the dark on your intentions. Sometimes what seems a victory isn't really a victory and sometimes a defeat isn't really a defeat. Whether in attacking, counterattacking, or defensive tactics, the idea of attacking should remain central, to always keep the initiative.

Vo Nguyen Giap

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.