Kobe Bryant was one the greatest basketball players to ever play for the NBA. After winning five NBA championships, making the All-Star team at least 18 times, earning MVP for all of the NBA in 2008, then becoming a two-time NBA Finals MVP, along with many other accolades, Kobe is more than deserving of his place amongst only a rare handful of other legendary players. And considering he has been inducted into the NBA Hall of fame, and is one of the greatest basketball players of all-times, we aim to highlight the true mindset of a champion via these Kobe Bryant quotes about hard work and success.
With that being said, if you’re looking to gain some key insights into the mind of one of the most competitive people to ever play professional sports, then you’ll enjoy these inspiring Kobe Bryant quotes about hard work and success.
KOBE BRYANT QUOTES ABOUT HARD WORK AND SUCCESS
1. “The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.” – Kobe Bryant
2. “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.” – Kobe Bryant
3. “Haters are a good problem to have. Nobody hates the good ones. They hate the great ones.” – Kobe Bryant
4. “I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan. I only want to be Kobe Bryant.” – Kobe Bryant
5. “The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.” – Kobe Bryant
6. “We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.” – Kobe Bryant
7. “I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you.” – Kobe Bryant
8. “If you do not believe in yourself, no one will do it for you.” – Kobe Bryant
9. “If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.” – Kobe Bryant
10. “Winning takes precedence over all. There is no gray area. No almosts.” – Kobe Bryant
11. “Determination silences doubters.” – Kobe Bryant
12. “Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.” – Kobe Bryant
13. “I want to be the best. Simple and plain.” – Kobe Bryant
14. “The most important thing is you must put everybody on notice that you’re here and you are for real. I’m not a player that is just going to come and go. I’m not a player that is going to make an all-star team on time, two times. I’m here to be an all-time great… Once I made that commitment and said ‘I want to be one of the greatest ever,’ then the game became everything for me.” – Kobe Bryant
15. “From the beginning, I wanted to be the best. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best.” – Kobe Bryant
16. “It’s all a matter of protecting your dreams and your imaginations.” – Kobe Bryant
17. “It’s the one thing you can control, you are responsible for how people remember you – or don’t. So, don’t take it lightly.” – Kobe Bryant
18. “The biggest mistake we make in life is thinking we have time.” – Kobe Bryant
19. “A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord.” – Kobe Bryant
20. “A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.” – Kobe Bryant
21. “My parents are my backbone. Still are. They’re the only group that will support you if your score zero or you score 40.” – Kobe Bryant
22. “Losing is losing, there aren’t different degrees of losing. You either win a championship or you’re sh–. It’s very black & white to me.” – Kobe Bryant
23. “This is the moment I accept the most challenging times will always be behind me and in front of me.” – Kobe Bryant
24. “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
25. “You can’t be held captive by the fear of failure or the fear of what people may say.” – Kobe Bryant
26. “We can always kind of be average and do what’s normal. I’m not in this to do what’s normal.” – Kobe Bryant
27. “When I step on that court, I become [Black Mamba]. I am that killer snake. I’m stone-cold, man.” – Kobe Bryant
28. “I had a summer where I played basketball when I was 10 or 11 years old. And here I come playing it and I don’t score one point the entire summer. I remember crying about it, being upset about it, and my father was giving me a hug and said, “Listen, whether you score 0 or sixty I am going to love you no matter what.” And that is the most important thing you can say to your child. Because from there I was like okay, that gives me all the confidence in the world to fail. But to hell with that, I am scoring sixty!” – Kobe Bryant
29. “I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.” – Kobe Bryant
30. “These young guys are playing checkers. I’m out there playing chess.” – Kobe Bryant
31. “Leadership is lonely … I’m not going to be afraid of confrontation to get us to where we need to go.” – Kobe Bryant
32. “Once you know what failure feels like, determination chases success.” – Kobe Bryant
33. “May you always remember to enjoy the road, especially when it’s a hard one.” – Kobe Bryant
34. “When I am retired, I don’t want to have say I wish I would have done more. I don’t want that.” – Kobe Bryant
35. ” There’s a quote from one of my English teachers at Little Marian named Mr. Fisk. He had a great quote that said, “Rest at the end, not in the middle.” And that’s something I’ll always live by.” – Kobe Bryant
36. “We don’t quit, we don’t cower, we don’t run. We endure and conquer.” – Kobe Bryant
37. “Learn to love the hate. Embrace it. Enjoy it. You earned it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and everyone should have one about you.” – Kobe Bryant
Halfway There
You’re halfway through these hard-hitting Kobe Bryant quotes about hard work, success, and become your best, so keep to it. And if at the end of this page, you’ve been inspired by some of Kobe’s words of wisdom, please considering sharing it with a person who could use Kobe’s moving insights.
Related: Inspiring Quotes on Success
38. “When we are saying this cannot be accomplished, this cannot be done, then we are short-changing ourselves.” – Kobe Bryant
39. “‘Rudy‘ was one of my favorite films growing up. After watching that film I come to understand if I could work that hard everyday, being blessed with the physical tools that I have, what would be career be?” – Kobe Bryant
40. “Friends can come and go, but banners hang forever.” – Kobe Bryant
41. “Boos don’t block dunks.” – Kobe Bryant
42. “You are responsible for how people remember you—or don’t. So don’t take it lightly.” – Kobe Bryant
43. “There’s nothing truly to be afraid of, when you think about it, because I’ve failed before, and I woke up the next morning, and I’m OK.” – Kobe Bryant
44. “My brain… it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I sit there and have to face myself and tell myself, ‘You’re a failure’… I think that’s almost worse than death.” – Kobe Bryant
45. “There’s a choice that we have to make as people, as individuals. If you want to be great at something, there’s a choice you have to make. We all can be masters at our craft, but you have to make a choice. What I mean by that is, there are inherent sacrifices that come along with that. Family time, hanging out with friends, being a great friend, being a great son, nephew, whatever the case may be. There are sacrifices that come along with making that decision.” – Kobe Bryant
46. “Leave everything on the court. Leave the game better than you found it. And when it comes time for you to leave, leave a legend.” – Kobe Bryant
47. “The beauty in being blessed with talent is rising above doubters to create a beautiful moment.” – Kobe Bryant
48. “I create my own path. It was straight and narrow. I looked at it this way – you were either in my way, or out of it.” – Kobe Bryant
49. “You asked for myhustle– I gave you my heart.” – Kobe Bryant
50. “Passion is the fuel for success.” – Kobe Bryant
51. “Either way, I refuse to change what I am. A lion has to eat. Run with me or run from me.” – Kobe Bryant
52. “No matter how difficult the challenge is, always stay positive and believe in yourself.” – Kobe Bryant
53. “The only thing I can control is how hard I work every single day.” – Kobe Bryant
54. “After all, greatness is not for everybody.” – Kobe Bryant
55. “We psych ourselves up too much. Like if you try to talk yourself into, ‘Oh, this is a big moment, this is a big shot,’ you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. You shot that shot hundreds and thousands of times. Just shoot another one.” – Kobe Bryant
56. “I don’t want chumps, I don’t want pushovers, and if you’re a chump and a pushover, I will run over you.” – Kobe Bryant
57. “There’s been a lot of talk of me being a one-man show but that’s simply not the case. We win games when I score 40 points and we’ve won when I score 10.” – Kobe Bryant
58. “I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.” – Kobe Bryant
59. “Be sad. Be mad. Be frustrated. Scream. Cry. Sulk. When you wake up you will think it was just a nightmare only to realize it’s all too real. You will be angry and wish for the day back, the game back, that play back. But reality gives nothing back and nor should you.”
60. “Heroes come and go, but legends are forever.” – Kobe Bryant
61. “Have a good time. Life is too short to get bogged down and be discouraged. You have to keep moving. You have to keep going. Put one foot in front of the other,smileand just keep on rolling.” – Kobe Bryant
62. “I never needed any external forces to motivate me.” – Kobe Bryant
63. “I realized that intimidation didn’t really exist if you’re in the right frame of mind.” – Kobe Bryant
64. “When you make a choice and say, ‘Come hell or high water, I am going to be this,’ then you should not be surprised when you are that. It should not be something that is intoxicating or out of character because you have seen this moment for so long that when that moment comes, ofcourseit is here because it has been here the whole time, because it has been in your mind the whole time.” – Kobe Bryant
65. “I saw you come in and I wanted you to know that it doesn’t matter how hard you work, that I’m willing to work harder than you.” – Kobe Bryant
66. “Be willing to sacrifice anything, but compromise nothing in your quest to be your best.” – Kobe Bryant
67. “The biggest dreams aren’t fueled by belief, they’re fueled by doubt.” – Kobe Bryant
68. “If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it.” – Kobe Bryant
69. “To think of me as a person that’s overachieved, that would be a lot to me. That means I put a lot of work in and squeezed every ounce of juice out of this orange that I could.” – Kobe Bryant
70. “You always want to outwork your potential. As hard as you believe you can work, you can work harder than that.” – Kobe Bryant
71. “As the leader of a team, it’s also your responsibility to elevate the rest of the guys.” – Kobe Bryant
72. “I play games with the flu, I play games with 102 degree fever man. You gotta be on man.” – Kobe Bryant
73. “I never tried to prove anything to someone else. I wanted to prove something to myself.” – Kobe Bryant
74. “I love that kids are buildingconfidenceon and off the court and unlocking their potential through sport.” – Kobe Bryant
75. “Basketball for me was the most important thing. So everything I saw, whether it was TV shows, whether it was books I read, people I talked to, everything was done to try to learn how to become a better basketball player. Everything. Everything. And so when you have that point of view, then literally the world becomes your library to help you become better at your craft.” – Kobe Bryant
76. “If you live your life to just get better every single day, and you do that for 20 years what do you have?” – Kobe Bryant
77. “I think the best way to prove your value is to work, is to learn, is to absorb, to be a sponge.” – Kobe Bryant
78. “If I had the power to turn back time I would never use it, because then every moment that you go through means absolutely nothing because you can always go back and do it again.” – Kobe Bryant
79. “Those times when you get up early and you work hard, those times when you stay up late and you work hard, those times when you don’t feel like working, you’re too tired, you don’t want to push yourself, but you do it anyway. That is actually the dream.” – Kobe Bryant
80. “You have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light.” – Kobe Bryant
Related: The Kobe Bryant Success Story
Bonus Kobe Bryant Quote
Bonus: Alright, you’ve made to the very end of our Kobe Bryant quotes about hard work and success. This last quote is a bonus, because it most aligns with our philosophy and beliefs here at The Strive. So, we hope you’ll take it to heart. Enjoy.
Final Thoughts
There you have it, some of the most legendary Kobe Bryant success quotes on success and hard work to help you reach your potential. Our hope is that these quotes will inspire you to obtain the focus, commitment, and work ethic to make your dreams come true.
Till next time,
STRIVE
PS – If you enjoyed these highly motivational Kobe Bryant quotes, then we have hunch you’ll like these powerful Michael Jordan quotes as well.
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