Top 100 Professional Athlete Quotes

Once upon a time, it was hard to decipher what was more difficult to stomach: the foolish, detrimental behavior of a professional athlete or the apologists disguised as their inner circle, eager to excuse the inexcusable. And then there came Allen Iverson, who didn’t make it difficult at all.

Any professional athlete who gets on TV or radio and says he never played with a gay guy is a stone-freakin’ idiot.

You get older, and you want to be a professional athlete; you want to win on the biggest stage.

I like to think that I’m a family man first and a professional athlete second.

This is a business. I’m a professional athlete. This isn’t, ‘poke somebody and start a street fight.’

As a professional athlete, I believe that I need to explore my opportunities to the maximum, in order to excel and continue to play the best football I can.

As a child I wanted to be a professional athlete or lawyer.

For the longest time people were like, ‘Oh you play soccer, what else do you do?’ Cause they couldn’t believe that you could just be women’s professional athlete. That’s really frustrating because it’s almost devaluing your actual skill and ability.

Madonna is an athlete; she has to be treated like a professional athlete. She doesn’t work out for six hours a day, though, like some of the press says. She never works out for more than two hours a day, and then only when she has the time.

At the end of the day, if you’re a professional athlete in track and field you are the CEO of your company.

Nick Aldis is a great champion. He looks like a professional athlete. He dresses like one. He carries it well.

When all you’ve done is work toward being a professional athlete, and then you injure yourself, and you know that you’re going to be out for a while, it’s gut-wrenching. It almost feels like your life is over because that’s all you’ve ever worked for.

Any professional athlete will tell you that the mind is everything. For me, there is no shame in saying that I visualize and I meditate, because it really works.

I learned a lot from my father. I’m very lucky to have a father who was a professional athlete.

Like AEW, it kind of feels like they’re treating you like a professional athlete, and Lucha Underground is like a lot of TV production stuff. It felt like they treated you like a professional actor. The treatment was just above that for a wrestler.

I was a total athlete. I loved sports, but when I realized I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete, I realized I wanted to be in movies.

When I was younger if I was in someone else’s shoes, if you saw a professional athlete you’d want to go up and introduce yourself and ask a couple questions, so I definitely know where they’re coming from.

I always wanted to be a professional athlete and really did not necessarily care which sport.

To try to be a professional athlete and work out when you’re not sleeping right, you’re traveling day to day, not to mention the bumps and bruises in the ring, and you’re trying to eat right – it’s a very, very challenging job.

As a professional athlete a lot is going to be said about you – but I just try to move forward and try to achieve my goals.

No athlete ever ends his or her career the way you want to. We all want to play forever. But it doesn’t work that way. Accepting the end gracefully is part of being a professional athlete.

I want to be a professional athlete who plays for the love of the game, never quits trying to give my best and is a good role model for all of the kids who look up to baseball players.

Every professional athlete has fear, doubts and negative thoughts. But people expect you to just ignore them and move forward.

If you’re a professional athlete, and after the game, you’re eating at the same place that somebody in the audience is eating at? You’re making a mistake.

I think any professional athlete who says they stick to a strict diet and weigh their food out every time is either lying or they’re sick.

I train my entire body to be strong. To be a professional athlete, we need every part to be strong – the core, the legs, arms.

I’ve said numerous times the hardest job in America isn’t being a professional athlete. It’s not being a matador or having some job that puts your life at risk. The hardest job in America is being black, because it’s the one thing you can’t outrun.

It is an honor and privilege to be able to be in a position to utilize my platform as a professional athlete to support the lives of others.

As a tennis player, or any professional athlete, our career has a shelf life. I don’t want to waste any opportunities, I don’t want to look back on it when I’m 45 and think I could have done a lot more.

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.

We get stereotyped so much. Look, people are going to think what they’re going to think of me, but if I’m myself consistently then I don’t fit into your little box of what a professional athlete is.

I was a professional athlete, the best baseball player in the world at one point.

There is no correlation between a childhood success and a professional athlete.

I came out of my professional athlete career with a 450 credit score, no money in the bank to show for it, but I had an Ivy League degree. So I put that Dartmouth degree to good use and got a job on Wall Street. I hated it but used the time to make connections and become financially literate.

As a professional athlete, the onus is on you to take responsibility.

I am not someone who deserves to be dissected and analyzed like some tragic example of everything that can possibly go wrong for a professional athlete.

I would encourage people to participate in sports. You don’t have to dream of being an Olympic or a professional athlete.

Once upon a time, it was hard to decipher what was more difficult to stomach: the foolish, detrimental behavior of a professional athlete or the apologists disguised as their inner circle, eager to excuse the inexcusable. And then there came Allen Iverson, who didn’t make it difficult at all.

Do you need to train two hours a day? Probably not. The reason why my celebrity clients have to train two hours a day is because their endurance level is so strong. For Madonna to get results and keep results, it’s like a professional athlete training – she has to push harder.

Obviously, you’re known for what you do. But you still want to be known as a good person. You’re a person a lot longer before and after you’re a professional athlete.

It’s an amazing life, don’t get me wrong. But being a professional athlete, is… is not as glamorous as everybody sets it out to be.

I don’t know about politics so much. I’m a professional athlete.

I learned a lot from my father. I’m very lucky to have a father who was a professional athlete.

We get stereotyped so much. Look, people are going to think what they’re going to think of me, but if I’m myself consistently then I don’t fit into your little box of what a professional athlete is.

That’s why you went to school, because you realize that, being a professional athlete, there’s a good chance you’re not going to make it. You need an education, that’s why for me, it was such an important decision to go to college and further my education to provide me a safety net in case this didn’t work out.

Being a Diva, you’re a professional athlete and then you get to entertain. It’s the best of every aspect, all in one. That’s why I fell in love with it.

Since my sophomore year in high school, I knew I didn’t want to do anything but be a professional athlete. I knew when I got to college there was no way anybody was going to stop me from being an NFL player.

Charles Oakley was the first professional athlete that I met, period. That meant a ton. It proved to me that if I worked hard enough, good things would happen.

It truly takes a village to become a professional athlete.

I always wanted to be a professional athlete, it just took me a while to realise it would be in racing. I played field hockey competitively for Ontario since I was 13, 14. Then I tried for the national side and made it. But it was so competitive. The girls were just so big and strong. I was getting crushed.

A female professional athlete has to have the whole package, as opposed to a guy who can just be good at sport. You have to have a job or go to uni or do three sports instead of one, you have to be a standout.

I’ve always known being a professional athlete is tough, let alone being a quarterback in the National Football League. There’s a lot on you, a lot of pressure on you to succeed. You take the glory and you take the falls, but that’s what I signed up to do.

I’m from Minnesota and have always lived there. And my competitive career actually started in the late ’90s racing motocross, which then turned into racing snowmobiles professionally. I turned pro in 2003, racing with the best in the world and living my dream as a professional athlete.

My mum and dad are both sportspeople and know what’s it all about. They know it’s hard work, but they also know what it takes to become a professional athlete. I don’t think – without their help, I wouldn’t have got this far.