Great comeback quotes can help inspire you to turn your setbacks into comebacks.
Dealing with adversity is one of the most difficult and endearing lessons in sports. Use these quotes to inspire and motivate players coming back from injury or setbacks in their pursuit of excellence.
While everyone loves a good comeback story, what most folks don’t see is all the training and works that goes into one. Hopefully, these carefully selected words will serve as inspiration and motivation.
Best Comeback Quotes
1.) Turn every setback into a comeback.
Kobe Bryant
2.) It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth
3.) You’re never a loser until you quit trying.
Mike Ditka
4.) You have to believe in yourself when no one else does.
Serena Williams
5.) I’m coming back. Write it down in big letters. I’m not going out like this.
Mariano Rivera
6.) Never, ever give up.
Jimmy Valvano
7.) The mark of a great champion is the one who can get up off the mat and win.
Bill Belichick
8.) A champion is defined by the adversity he overcomes.
Anderson Silva
9.) No athlete is truly tested until they’ve stared an injury in the face and came out on the other side stronger than ever.
Unknown
10.) The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.
Vince Lombardi
Good Comeback Quotes For Sports
11.) An injury is not just a process of recovery, it’s a process of discovery.
Connor McGregor
12.) My body could stand the crutches but my mind couldn’t stand the sideline.
Michael Jordan, on his retirement
13.) Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.
Unknown
14.) Going in, you want to play a perfect season and play throughout the whole entire season, but injuries are a part of basketball.
Kyrie Irving
15.) I’ve dealt with adversity before, had injuries before. I didn’t let that slow me down. It just changed my attitude about the game.
Deshaun Watson
16.) Injuries are a part of the game. Every athlete knows that.
Damian Lillard
17.) I think that’s one of the things I’ve learned through my injuries is that I need to play smarter.
Taysom Hill
18.) Injuries made people lose confidence in me, but I never lost confidence in myself.
Penny Hardway
19.) Every team deals with obstacles throughout the course of the season, and it’s as a unit that they need to be worked through. Injuries are part of the game, just like facing tough teams on the road or having one of your best players get into foul trouble.
Scottie Pippen
Injury Comeback Quotes
20.) Injuries can never be used as excuses.
Victor Valdes
21.) Injury taught me I need to learn how to face challenges.
Shawn Johnson
22.) Injury, in general, teaches you to appreciate every moment. I’ve had my share of injuries throughout my career. It’s humbling. It gives you perspective. No matter how many times I’ve been hurt, I’ve learned from that injury and come back even more humble.
Troy Polamalu
23.) Pain is weakness leaving the body.
Tom Sobal
24.) I had to develop the mentality and stay positive about making my comeback.
Alonzo Mourning
25.) I don’t know if God is a sports fan or not, but I do know this: He loves a good comeback.
Lane Kiffin
26.) A comeback in gymnastics is almost impossible in itself.
Shawn Johnson
27.) To persevere is important to everybody. Don’t give up. Don’t Give in. There is always an answer to everything.
Louis Zamperini
28.) Injuries are our best teachers.
Scott Jurek
29.) Back before I injured my hip, I thought going to the gym was for wimps.
Bo Jackson
30.) I get Tweets every day from people telling me that Hey, I’m going to overcome my injury or my illness. Cancer. Different diseases. I can beat it because Adrian Peterson showed me the determination and the willpower to be able to prosper and get through adversity whenever it comes.
Adrian Peterson
Keep Pushing Quotations
40.) The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.
Kobe Bryant
41.) Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.
Lou Holtz
42.) I have overcome many difficult moments in my career.
Kaka
43.) My family and I had to overcome a lot to get where we are today.
Gabby Douglas
44.) Pain doesn’t tell you when you ought to stop. Pain is the little voice in your head that tries to hold you back because it knows if you continue you will change.
Kobe Bryant
45.) If everything was going smoothly, you’d never build character.
Maria Sharapova
46.) The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory, that’s the essence of it.
Vince Lombardi
47.) Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up.
Michael Jordan
48.) Be patient. Everything is coming together.
Unknown
49.) Sports do not build character, they reveal it.
John Wooden
Inspirational Quotes For Athletes
50.) We were going to have to experiment, and we needed to develop our younger players. And a lot of the changes were because of injuries. But that’s where I give a lot of credit to the group in terms of being able to maintain things.
Isaiah Thomas
51.) Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.
Satchel Paige
52.) Pain heals. Chicks dig scars.
Shane Falco
53.) Don’t let an injury be the determining factor of who you are. Instead, try to use it as a learning experience.
Mota
54.) Now, I don’t take anything for granted.
Derrick Rose
55.) There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.
Alexander Smith
56.) Love is playing every game as if it’s your last.
Michael Jordan
57.) There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. And, there will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits.
Michael Phelps
58.) No matter how hard it is or how hard it gets, I’m going to make it.
Les Brown
59.) Life is not an accident.
Jay Williams, after his leg injury
Encouraging Quotes For Sports
60.) What makes something special is not just what you have to gain but what you feel you there is to lose.
Andre Agassi
61.) It was the greatest comeback I’ve ever seen.
Michael Jordan, on Tiger Woods Masters victory
62.) If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.
Fred DeVito
63.) You hear about how many fourth-quarter comebacks that a guy has and I think that means a guy screwed up in the first three quarters.
Peyton Manning
64.) It’s not about the setback, it’s about the comeback.
Robyn Benincasa
65.) Comeback is a good word, man.
Mickey Rourke
66.) By making a comeback, I’m changing the attitude of people toward me. If I’d known that people would react so enthusiastically, I’d have done it years ago.
Mark Spitz
67.) That was a great comeback, probably one of the best that I’ve ever been involved in.
Amani Toomer
68.) I’m never going to be content with a comeback when we lose.
Charlie Weis
69.) This is our comeback year.
Mark Purnell
70.) It’s always great to see a comeback.
Marty Smith
Short Comeback Quotes
71.) There’s no talent here. This is hard work, this is an obsession.
Connor McGregor
72.) The mental game is more about subtraction than addition.
Rob Bell
73.) It was never easy. It’s not supposed to be easy.
Tiger Woods, on his comeback
74.) Success is not an accident, it is a choice.
Steph Curry
75.) If you don’t fall, how are you going to know what getting up is like?
Steph Curry
76.) If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?
Joe Namath
77.) You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work for it.
Lionel Messi
78.) You either have a victory or an excuse. You can’t have both.
Tiger Woods
79.) Keep working when nobody is watching.
Alex Morgan
80.) Failures are expected by winners but are ignored by winners.
Joe Gibbs
81.) A setback is a setup for a comeback.
Eric Thomas
82.) It’s always a comeback season for me.
Johnny Manziel
83.) Most guys would have retired. Not me.
Derrick Rose
Inspiring Comeback Quotes
84.) I’ve grown most not from victories, but from setbacks. If winning is God’s reward, then losing is how he teaches us.
Serena Williams
85.) That’s why I made a comeback in 1988. I knew there were chances of not making it, but I didn’t want to end up at sixty years old and say I should have tried when I was thirty-eight.
Guy LaFleur
86.) I wanted to show the world that it can be done. Anything is possible with the right mindset. If you believe in yourself and you sacrifice and dedicate, with the right help you can come back.
Tyson Fury
87.) Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.
Matt Biondi
88.) I’m not looking for any excuses.
Martina Hingis
89.) A successful person never loses… They either win or learn!
Unknown
Motivational Comeback Quotes
90.) It is not the size of the man that matters, but the size of his heart that matters.
Evander Holyfield
91.) The true measure of success is how many times you can bounce back from failure.
Stephen Richards
92.) Resilience is knowing that you are the only one that has the power and responsibility to pick yourself up.
Mary Holloway
93.) Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.
Bill Russell
94.) The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.
Pele
95.) Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.
Marv Levy
96.) During my 18 years, I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at-bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.
Mickey Mantle
Motivating Quotations For Sports
97.) I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.
Tom Landry
98.) It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.
Muhammad Ali
99.) Winners are not people who never fail, but people who never quit.
Larry Bird
100.) You can never make up for a lost day.
John Wooden
101.) It’s important to keep trying to do what you think is right no matter how hard it is or how often you fail. You never stop trying. I’m still trying.
John Wooden
102.) Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
Muhammad Ali
— Tom McGowan & Mike O’Halloran
Tom and Mike are sportswriters who live in the Twin Cities.
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