I worked very hard. I felt I could play the game. The only thing that could stop me was myself.

You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go... Don't ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.

It has meant a lot to me to challenge the best players in the world and to beat them. And it means a lot to me to be out here and fighting for the title and, you know, it hurts not to win it.

How can we hope to remain economically competitive in a world in which... 90% of Dutch high-school students take advanced math courses and 100% of teachers in Germany have double majors, while the best we can say about our pocket of excellence is that 75% of [American] students have learned to critique tactfully?

World trade means competition from anywhere; advancing technology encourages cross-industry competition. Consequently, strategic planning must consider who our future competitors will be, not only who is here today.

What it comes down to is that anybody can win with the best horse. What makes you good is if you can take the second or third-best horse and win.

Thank God for competition. When our competitors upset our plans or outdo our designs, they open infinite possibilities of our own work to us.

Competitions are for horse, not artist.

I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I Love to play.

To free the mind from the habit of competition, we must see in detail the process by which the mind is ensnared by competition.

Competition is a process or variety of habitual behavior that grows out of a habit of mind.

Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one.

Show me a guy who is afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time.

Focus on competition has always been a formula for mediocrity.

Somebody will always break your records. It is how you live that counts.

I don't psyche myself up. I psyche myself down. I think clearer when I'm not psyched up.

Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath.

Thou shalt not covet; but tradition approves all forms of competition.

It's amazing how much of this is mental. Everybody's in good shape. Everybody knows how to ski. Everybody has good equipment. When it really boils down to it, it's who wants it the most, and who's the most confident on his skis.

You must sacrifice, train, do everything possible to put yourself in a position to win. But if you consider second or third a failure, I feel sorry for you.

You get out in front -- you stay out in front.

The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be only sustainable competitive advantage.

Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you.

Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.

Racing is a matter of spirit not strength.

Every time you go out on the ice, there are slight flaws. You can always think of something you should have done better. These are the things you must work on.

Men often compete with one another until the day they die; comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.

I play [golf] with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

The biggest things are often the easiest to do because there is so little competition.

You find that you have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep, and rest when you know that it was a one hundred percent effort that you gave -- win or lose.

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed -- there's so little competition.

The only competition worthy a wise man is with himself.

Running for money doesn't make you run fast. It makes you run first.

Once your physically capable of winning a gold medal, the rest is ninety percent mental.

The medals don't mean anything and the glory doesn't last. It's all about your happiness. The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing.

You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.

When the game is over it is really just beginning.

When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn.

I watch a man shoot pool for an hour. If he misses more than one shot I know I can beat him.

The time your game is most vulnerable is when you're ahead, never let up.

He can run but he can't hide.

I consider myself one of a very small handful of drivers in the world that are top drivers. The best one? I don't think anybody can say they're the best one because, from one week to the next, you can be on form or off form a little bit.

When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

This is a tough game. There are times when you've got to play hurt, when you've got to block out the pain.

I don't compete with other discus throwers. I compete with my own history.

Playing safe is only playing.

These are the days when it takes all you've got just to keep up with the losers.

Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

I don't care how good you play, you can find somebody who can beat you, and I don't care how bad you play, you can find somebody you can beat.

One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion.

For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes -- not that you won or lost -- but how you played the Game.

I won it, at least five million times. Men who were stronger, bigger and faster than I was could have done it, but they never picked up a pole, and never made the feeble effort to pick their legs off the ground and get over the bar.

Win or lose, do it fairly.

The difference of great players is at a certain point in a match they raise their level of play and maintain it. Lesser players play great for a set, but then less.

Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good someone else.

When you step onto that field, you cannot concede a thing.

Enjoy the successes that you have, and don't be too hard on yourself when you don't do well. Too many times we beat up on ourselves. Just relax and enjoy it.

When you're riding, only the race in which you're riding is important.

If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot.

I ski to win. When the day comes that I can't get myself into a fighting mood anymore, I won't be able to win and I'll stop racing.

How can they beat me? I've been struck by lightning, had two back operations, and been divorced twice.

We have a lot of players in their first year. Some of them are also in their last year.

The key to any game is to use your strengths and hide your weaknesses.

When I go our on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.

The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of his or her organization is going to blow the competition away.