Kobe Bryant was one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
During a career spanning 2 decades the LA Lakers legend won 5 championships, was named NBA Most Valuable Player and broke numerous records.
Kobe’s life on and off the court wasn’t easy, but they provided Bryant numerous moments of inspiration to use for himself and that could serve as inspiration for us all.
Whether you deemed him a hero or villain it’s hard to deny Kobe’s greatness. His insatiable work ethic was recognised by everyone and he was an absolute winner.
Its that mentality that can inspire you to unleash your own greatness.
If you need some inspiration or are looking for some extra motivation to raise your game then the Kobe Bryant quotes below are sure to give you just that. Enjoy!
Kobe Bryant Quotes To Inspire Greatness
1. “Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No almosts.” – Kobe Bryant
2. “Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.” – Kobe Bryant
3. “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
4. “My parents are my backbone. Still are. They’re the only group that will support you if you score zero or you score 40.” – Kobe Bryant
5. “I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.” – Kobe Bryant
6. “The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.” – Kobe Bryant
7. “Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.” – Kobe Bryant
8. “I’ve played with IVs before, during and after games. I’ve played with a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a torn shoulder, a fractured tooth, a severed lip, and a knee the size of a softball. I don’t miss 15 games because of a toe injury that everybody knows wasn’t that serious in the first place.” – Kobe Bryant
9. “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
10. “I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‘My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.’ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.” – Kobe Bryant
11. “The topic of leadership is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven’t had that fear.” – Kobe Bryant
12. “These young guys are playing checkers. I’m out there playing chess.” – Kobe Bryant
13. “I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.” – Kobe Bryant
14. “Can I jump over two or three guys like I used to? No. Am I as fast as I used to be? No, but I still have the fundamentals and smarts. That’s what enables me to still be a dominant player. As a kid growing up, I never skipped steps. I always worked on fundamentals because I know athleticism is fleeting.” – Kobe Bryant
15. “If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.” – Kobe Bryant
16. “People just don’t understand how obsessed I am with winning.” – Kobe Bryant
17. “I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be Kobe Bryant.” – Kobe Bryant
18. “As I sit here now, when I take off my shoe and I look down at my scar, I see beauty in it. I see all the hard work, all the sacrifices. I see the journey that it took to get back to this point of being healthy. And I see beauty in that struggle. That’s what makes it beautiful.” – Kobe Bryant
19. “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
20. “I’ve shot too much from the time I was 8 years old. But ‘too much’ is a matter of perspective. Some people thought Mozart had too many notes in his compositions. Let me put it this way: I entertain people who say I shoot too much. I find it very interesting. Going back to Mozart, he responded to critics by saying there were neither too many notes or too few. There were as many as necessary.” – Kobe Bryant
21. “I’m playing against great players, playing against the best in the world. The competition – that’s what I’ve always wanted.” – Kobe Bryant
22. “On being forced to retire if his hand fell off: “Even then, you could still play with one hand.”” – Kobe Bryant
23. “Are you willing to push the right buttons even if it means being perceived as the villain?…I’d rather be perceived as a winner than a good teammate. I wish they both went hand in hand all the time but that’s just not reality…I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success.” – Kobe Bryant
24. “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
25. “Take it all in. Sit back and watch and listen and hear all the hate that’s being thrown at us and remember every person that’s kicking you when you’re down, because next year it ain’t gonna be this way. Appreciate it now. Let it sit in now, because revenge is sweet and it’s quick.” – Kobe Bryant
26. “Losing is losing, there aren’t different degrees of losing. You either win a championship or you’re sh*t. It’s very black & white to me.” – Kobe Bryant
27. “It doesn’t bother me at all. Do I hold any hard feelings? Not at all,…Life is too short to sit around and hold grudges. I don’t hold any whatsoever.” – Kobe Bryant
28. “I don’t just try to score. The challenge is elevating my teammates to be able to win a championship.” – Kobe Bryant
29. “Once you know what failure feels like, determination chases success.” – Kobe Bryant
30. The beauty in being blessed with talent is rising above doubters to create a beautiful moment. – Kobe Bryant
31. “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 one 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
32. “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will do it for you.” – Kobe Bryant
33. “The moment you give up, is the moment you let someone else win.” – Kobe Bryant
34. “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. Don’t let it stop you from being who you can be. Exhaustion tells you when you ought to stop. You only reach your limit when you can go no further.” – Kobe Bryant
35. “Dedication sees dreams come true.” – Kobe Bryant
36. “Use your success, wealth and influence to put them in the best position to realise their own dreams and find their true purpose. Put them through school, set them up with job interviews and help them become leaders in their own right. Hold them to the same level of hard work and dedication that it took for you to get where you are now, and where you will eventually go.” – Kobe Bryant
37. “Either way, I refuse to change what I am. A lion has to eat. Run with me or run from me. – Kobe Bryant
38. You need to figure out a way to invest in the future of your family and friends. This sounds simple, and you may think it’s a no-brainer, but take some time to think on it further. I said INVEST. I did not say GIVE.” – Kobe Bryant
39. “Trust me, setting things up right from the beginning will avoid a ton of tears and heartache…” – Kobe Bryant
40. “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. If you were standing between me and the game, I was going to knock you on your back and not feel bad about it. I was unapologetically me. That’s all I ever wanted to be I was never worried about my reputation- that’s how I earned one. That’s how I became the Black Mamba.” – Kobe Bryant
41. “Determination silences doubters.” – Kobe Bryant
42. “Losers visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success.” – Kobe Bryant
43. “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. Haters are a good problem to have. Nobody hates the good ones. They hate the great ones.” – Kobe Bryant
44. “To be an event, every single night. Something witnessed. Not just watched. I had a different drive. The kind that made people uneasy. Some people wanted me to come back down to earth. To come down to their level.To relax. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t in my DNA. Because to go where others have never gone, you have to do what others have never done.” – Kobe Bryant
45. “Be willing to sacrifice anything, but compromise nothing in your quest to be your best.” – Kobe Bryant
46. “If you are going to be a leader, you’re not going to please everybody. You got to hold people accountable, even if you have that moment of being uncomfortable.” – Kobe Bryant
47. “I saw things differently. I didn’t want to do what others had done. That didn’t drive me, didn’t get me in the gym before others got up. I wanted to do one better. Actually, I wanted to do a lot better. There were players I looked up to until I looked them square in the eyes. I know that one day, when I left the game, I didn’t actually want to leave. I wanted to leave my mark.” – Kobe Bryant
48. “The biggest dreams aren’t fueled by belief. They’re fueled by doubt.” – Kobe Bryant
49. “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. If you do it right, your game will live on in others. You’ll be imitated and emulated by those you played with, those you played against and those who never saw you play at all. So 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
50. “We can always kind of be average and do what’s normal. I’m not in this to do what’s normal.” – Kobe Bryant
51. “We don’t quit, we don’t cower, we don’t run. We endure and conquer.” – Kobe Bryant
52. “Being a leader, it’s the art of trying to find the balance, the right times with each individual and what they need at that moment. It requires looking outward as opposed to looking inside.” – Kobe Bryant
53. “The hunger [to succeed] is the same, no matter what it is that you’re doing. It’s like an unquenchable thirst to learn more, or to feel like you could have done more, and to be brutally honest and self critical, which is very hard to do. It’s easy, and human nature is to just blame somebody else. It’s very, very hard to self assess.” – Kobe Bryant
54. “If you make it, great. If you miss it, what’s there to be afraid of?” – Kobe Bryant
55. “If you want to make history, you have to do historic things.” – Kobe Bryant
56. “There is power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own.” – Kobe Bryant
57. “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.” – Kobe Bryant
58. “There’s a reason why players that have multiple championships have multiple championships. There’s a certain characteristic and an understanding and knowledge and that’s not something that’s easily taught. You kind of have to go through it and it kind of has to be part of your DNA from the beginning.” – Kobe Bryant
59. “I was probably born a scorer, but I was made a winner. Whatever works, whatever wins championships, wins games, that’s what I do.” – Kobe Bryant
60. “Heroes come and go, but legends are forever.” – Kobe Bryant
61. “You always have to be on edge. You always have to take every practice, every game, like it is your last.” – Kobe Bryant
62. “It’s not about the number of hours you practice, it’s about the number of hours your mind is present during the practice.” – Kobe Bryant
63. “I wanna be the best, simple and plain.” – Kobe Bryant
64. “I never tried to prove anything to someone else. I wanted to prove something to myself.” – Kobe Bryant
65. “What I’m doing right now, I’m chasing perfection… and if I don’t get it, I’m going to get this close.” – Kobe Bryant
66. “Listen to how everyone is talking about you. You have to use it as fuel for motivation.” – Kobe Bryant
67. “You can’t be held captive by the fear of failure or the fear of what people may say.” – Kobe Bryant
