Shoulda, coulda, and woulda won’t get it done. In attacking adversity, only a positive attitude, alertness, and regrouping to basics can launch a comeback.
—Pat Riley (b.1945) American Basketball Player, Coach
You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again.
—Pat Riley (b.1945) American Basketball Player, Coach
Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? is not this also a return?
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
—German Proverb
Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.
—Joe Paterno (1926–2012) American College Football Coach
A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
Nobody ever chooses the already unfortunate as objects of his loyal friendship.
—F. L. Lucas (1894–1967) English Literary Critic, Poet, Novelist, Playwright
Losing doesn’t eat at me the way it used to. I just get ready for the next play, the next game, the next season.
—Troy Aikman (b.1966) American Football Quarterback
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.
—Richard Whately (1787–1863) English Philosopher, Theologian
There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to complement the other.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win.
—Steffi Graf (b.1969) German Tennis Player, Philanthropist
It is defeat that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic natures that are now in ascendency in the world.—Do not then be afraid of defeat.—You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
If a man falls once, all will tread upon him.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Every man’s got to figure to get beat sometime.
—Joe Louis (1914–81) American Sportsperson
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.
—Samuel Butler
Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.
—Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) American Sportsperson
We have resolved to endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable.
—Emperor Hirohito (1901–89) Emperor of Japan
The cheerful loser is the winner.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.
—Queen Victoria (1819–1901) British Royal
Giving yourself permission to lose guarantees a loss.
—Pat Riley (b.1945) American Basketball Player, Coach
The first proof of a person’s incapacity to achieve, is their endeavoring to fix the stigma of failure on others.
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846) English Painter, Writer
What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer
I hate to lose more than I love to win.
—Jimmy Connors (b.1952) American Tennis Player
As always, victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.
—Galeazzo Ciano (1903–44) Italian Diplomat, Politician
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion, a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
No wise person should make known the loss of fortune, any malpractice in their house, his being cheated, or having been disgraced.
—The Hitopadesha Indian Collection of Fables
Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser.
—Paul Newman (1925–2008) American Actor, Philanthropist
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