10 Motivational and inspiring sports quotes from literature

For sports fans, sports are the epitome of hard work and dedication. To get to the pinnacle of their sport, even the most naturally gifted athletes have to give it their all.

Yes, we watch sports for the excitement, but even more so, we watch it for the drama. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing a team come back to win when they were losing, or a fighter getting off the canvas to score a come from behind knock-out. Sports are about those incredible moments where sheer human will and desire overcomes the odds. These are the moments we remember.

Given the nature of sports, it’s not surprising that athletes have had some inspiring and motivational things to say about hard work, leadership, perseverance, winning, and much more. Here are ten motivational and inspiring sports quotes from literature.

1. “Soccer forces life to move on. There’s always a new match. A new season. There’s always a dream that everything can get better. It’s a game of wonders.”
― Fredrik Backman, Britt-Marie var här

2. “Train like yours is the worst team, play like yours is the best team.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

3. “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.”
― John Bingham, No Need for Speed: A Beginner’s Guide to the Joy of Running 

4. “Pain? Yes, of course. Racing without pain is not racing. But the pleasure of being ahead outweighed the pain a million times over. To hell with the pain. What’s six minutes of pain compared to the pain they’re going to feel for the next six months or six decades?
― Brad Alan Lewis, Assault on Lake Casitas

5. “Everyone has the fire, but the champions know when to ignite the spark.”
― Amit Ray, Enlightenment Step by Step

6. “The pleasure of sport was so often the chance to indulge the cessation of time itself–the pitcher dawdling on the mound, the skier poised at the top of a mountain trail, the basketball player with the rough skin of the ball against his palm preparing for a foul shot, the tennis player at set point over his opponent–all of them savoring a moment before committing themselves to action.”
― George Plimpton, Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback

7. “Whereas fanatic is usually a pejorative word, a Fan is someone who has roots somewhere.”
― Simon Kuper, Soccernomics

8. “Fight if you must, work hard, give your best but never quit in the face of difficulty.”
― Sanchita Pandey, Voyage to Happiness!

9. “No matter the disappointment, you simply cannot divorce your favorite team.”
― Kevin Walker, These Moments Pass: Poems

10. “When we’re down and the momentum is stacked against us. Those are the moments when we find out what we’re made of. When we learn to trust and lean on each other.”
― Charles Martin, A Life Intercepted