Victory

What is the highest secret to victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with destiny.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger

To lose
Really to lose
To make room for the windfall
To lose
Life to Victory.
~ Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky), Always

To the victor belong only those spoils that may be constitutionally obtained.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (majority opinion), Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 497 U.S. 62 (1990).

A good, quick, small team can beat a big, slow team any time.
~ Paul William "Bear" Bryant, I Ain't Never Been Nothing but a Winner: Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's 323 Greatest Quotes About Success, On and Off the Football Field (March 2000).

If you believe in yourself and have pride and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.
~ Paul William "Bear" Bryant, in Special to Alabama Live (20 June 1997). The Bear Bryant Story

It's not the will to win that matters -- everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.
~ Paul William "Bear" Bryant

Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything that comes in second.
~ Paul William "Bear" Bryant

Win hearts, and you have all men's hands and purses.
~ William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Perry is rather judicious in picking his clients and happens to believe correctly. What would you want us to do? Send an innocent man to the chair?
~ Raymond (William Stacey) Burr (on winning every case as TV's Perry Mason), quoted in The Perry Mason TV Show Book (1987).

A game which a sharper once played with a dupe, entitled "Heads I win, tails you lose."
~ John Wilson Crocker

Get 'em quick and you live to fight another day.
~ William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey, in A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s (1999).

Well, we won the war. You know what that means. In twenty years, we'll all be driving Iraqi cars.
~ Will Durst

Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory.
~ Frederick William Faber

They always win who side with God.
~ Frederick William Faber

I'll bend effort to win and I come from a long line of effort-benders.
~ W.C. Fields, in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break: W.C. Fields on Business (January 2000).

It is ever the contest that pleases us, and not the victory.
~ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, in Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1858-60). Vol. I Metaphysics. Lecture I

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.
~ Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues (1956 autobiography).

The fight to get to the front is hard enough anyway, and if you want to win, do not poison your blood with tobacco smoke.
~ (Col.) William C. Hunter, Dollars and Sense: Being Memoranda made in the School of Practical Experience (1907). Cigarettes

Winners are not afraid to let people see them struggle in order to see them win.
~ Willie Jolley, A Setback is a Setup for a Comeback (September 1999).

No matter how tough, no matter what kind of outside pressure, no matter how many bad breaks along the way, I must keep my sights on the final goal, to win, win, win -- and with more love and passion than the world has ever witnessed in any performance.
~ Billie Jean King, Billie Jean (1975).

Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever.
~ Billie Jean King, in ESPN "Classic's SportsCentury" (2001). Billie Jean won for all women

You've got to win in sports -- that's talent -- but you've also got to learn how to remind everybody how you did win, and how often. That comes with experience.
~ Billie Jean King, Billie Jean (1975).

Everybody in the world thought we couldn't do it. But we did, dammit.
~ Bill Koch

Winning is better than the next worse thing.
~ Bill "The Spaceman" Lee

Never win 20 games because they will expect you to do it every year.
~ William "Billy" Loes

Every day sees humanity more victorious in the struggle with space and time.
~ Guglielmo Marconi

They see nothing wrong in the rule, that to the victor belongs the spoils of the enemy.
~ William Learned Marcy, Speech in the United States Senate (25 January 1832)

Everything looks nicer when you win. The girls are prettier. The cigars taste better. The trees are greener.
~ Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin

Victory comes in proportion as fear is banished.
~ William Moulton Marston, Emotions of Normal People (1928). Chapter I. Normalcy And Emotion

It is not talents or acquirements, but enthusiasm and energy, that win the battle of life.
~ William Mathews, Getting on in the World: Or, Hints on Success in Life (1872). Chapter XII: Business Habits

It would be hardly too much to say that, since the dawn of civilization, the triumphs of the tongue have rivalled, if not surpassed those of the sword.
~ William Mathews, Oratory and Orators (1878). Chapter I. The Power and Influence of the Orator

Most one run games are lost, not won.
~ Gene William Mauch

Players carry managers to championships.
~ Gene William Mauch

It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).

We knew we had to keep playing until the game was decided one way or the other. We played 10, 15 innings sometimes. The All-Star Game was important to us. We weren't worried about setting records. We were worried about winning.
~ Willie Howard Mays Jr., in The New York Times (13 July 2003). Mays Recalls All-Star Games With More Passion on the Field

Defeat is worse than death because you have to live with defeat.
~ Bill Musselman

When you win, nothing hurts.
~ Joe "Willie" Namath

To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice -- and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

No matter how much you've won, no matter how many games, no matter how many championships, no matter how many Super Bowls, you're not winning now, so you stink.
~ Bill Parcells, CBS TV "60 Minutes" (31 August 2003). The Coach: Bill Parcells

There is winning and there is misery.
~ Bill Parcells (on losing), CBS TV "60 Minutes" (2000).

If you're persistent enough, you will eventually win.
~ Bill Peterson, Jr., Florida State Times (February/March 1999). Grads Teamed Up to Start a Thriving Business

Roll up that map: it will not be wanted these ten years.
~ William Pitt, the Younger, (on hearing of Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805).

We win by tenderness. We conquer by forgiveness.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

If you want to win a race you have to go a little berserk.
~ William Henry (Bill) Rodgers

To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month or even one year -- but for a lifetime.
~ William Henry (Bill) Rodgers

The triumph can't be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.
~ Wilma Rudolph, in the Chicago Tribune (8 January 1989).

It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
~ Robert William Service, from The Spell of the Yukon, and Other Verses (1907). The Men That Don't Fit In

And either victory, or else a grave.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part III. Act II, scene ii

I may justly say with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, "I came, saw and overcame".
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II

[N]othing can seem foul to those who win.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I. Act V, scene i

The harder match'd, the greater victory.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part III. Act V, scene i

They laugh that win.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act IV, scene i

If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing.
~ Bill Shankly

There are one hundred and ninety ways to get beat, but only one way to win; get there first.
~ William Lee (Willie) "The Shoe" Shoemaker

Unlike a usual battle, where both sides want to win, this is a battle where I want you to win. I want you to fill in that last letter and feel the satisfaction of completing the challenge.
~ Will Shortz, CBS TV "60 Minutes" (2003). The New York Times' Master Puzzler

The conditions of conquest are always easy. We have but to toil a while, endure a while, believe always, and never turn back.
~ William Gilmore Simms, Egeria: Or, Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside (1853).

[I]t's when you're not winning ... -- it is then that the real test of leadership is made.
~ Sir William Joseph Slim, Speech to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (April 1952).

It's high time to fight when the walls are closin' in
Call it what you like -- it's time you got to win.
~ Billy Squier, in Don't Say No (1981 album). Lonely Is The Night

The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat.
~ Bill Squires

Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, "They only the victory win,
Who have fought the good fight and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within;
Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds on high;
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight -- if need be, to die."
~ William Wetmore Story, from Poems By William Wetmore Story (1885), Volume II. Monologues and Lyrics. Io Victis!

Speak, History! Who are life's victors? Unroll thy long annals and say:
Are they those whom the world calls the victors -- who won the success of a day?
~ William Wetmore Story, from Poems By William Wetmore Story (1885), Volume II. Monologues and Lyrics. Io Victis!

Surely we know that one of the best of the good things in life is victory and particularly moral victory. But to demand victory without an antagonist is to demand something with no meaning. If, then, goodness is to exist up to the limit of what even we can understand, there must at least be an antagonist to be overcome. If you take all the evil out of the world you will remove the possibility of the best thing in life.
~ William Temple (archbishop), The Faith And Modern Thought (1910). Lecture V. The Atonement And The Problem Of Evil

Suppose in a game of life -- and it is but a twopenny game after all -- you are equally eager of winning. Shall you be ashamed of your ambition, or glory in it?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, in The Cornhill Magazine (1863). Roundabout Papers -- No. XXVIII. Autour de mon Chapeau

Hopefully, I have won a few people over doing this. I went through every stage and did it the hard way. Hopefully, people will warm up to me a little more.
~ William Augustus "Ty" Tryon IV, The Associated Press (4 December 2001). Teen-Ager Tyron Earns PGA Tour Card

I do not think that winning is the most important thing. I think winning is the only thing.
~ Bill Veeck

Oh, know ye not 'tis victory but to live?
~ William Ross Wallace, from Meditations in America, and Other Poems (1851). The Chant of a Soul

Winning is about having the whole team on the same page.
~ William (Bill) Theodore Walton, III

Believe while others are doubting.
Plan while others are playing.
Study while others are sleeping.
Decide while others are delaying.
Prepare while others are daydreaming.
Begin while others are procrastinating.
Work while others are wishing.
Save while others are wasting.
Listen while others are talking.
Smile while others are frowning.
Commend while others are criticizing.
Persist while others are quitting.
~ William Arthur Ward

The winner persistently programs his pluses; the loser mournfully magnifies his minuses.
~ William Arthur Ward

It is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Poems of Passion (1883). Art and Heart

The talk of winning our share is not the easy one of disengagement and flight, but the hard one of work, of short as well as long jumps, of disappointments, and of sweet success.
~ Roy Wilkins

Losing is easy. It's not enjoyable, but it's easy.
~ Bud Wilkinson

By the splendour of God, I have taken seizin of my kingdom; the earth of England is in my two hands.
~ William, Duke of the Normans, (c. September 1066)

Look at me, here I am; I live, and by God's help will conquer.
~ William, Duke of the Normans, Battle of Hastings (September 1066)

Raise your standards, my brave men, and set neither measure nor limit to your merited rage. May the lightning of your glory be seen and the thunders of your onset heard from east to west, and be ye the avengers of noble blood.
~ William, Duke of the Normans, (c. September 1066)

Praise can give criticism a lead around the first turn and still win the race.
~ Bern Williams, in the National Enquirer.

It's like feeding a dog meat.
~ Jerome "Junkyard Dog" Williams (on the NBA's Toronto Raptors capitalizing on Washington's second-half collapse), The Washington Post (14 January 2003).

Perhaps madness is the last refuge for the over-sensitive: perhaps it's the cover of kindness the world draws over you when you can fight no more.
~ Kenneth Charles Williams, in The Kenneth Williams Diaries (1993).

All my life I've been waiting for this, and now it can happen. A Williams is going to win.
~ Richard Williams, The Associated Press (8 September 2001).

It makes me feel good, sure. But this isn't my last one. I still hope to coach a heck of a long time.
~ Roy Williams, in The Kansas City Star (16 January 2003). Williams gets win No. 400 as Kansas defeats Wyoming

I was just tired of losing. ... Life was passing me by.
~ Serena Williams, The Associated Press (8 September 2002). Serena beats Venus to win U.S. Open, third straight major title

What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? -- I wish I knew ...
Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).

I always like to win. But I'm the big sister. I want to make sure she has everything, even if I don't have anything. It's hard. I love her too much. That's what counts.
~ Venus Williams, The Associated Press (8 September 2001).

In my mind, I'm always the best. If I walk out on the court (and) I think the next person is better, I've already lost.
~ Venus Williams, The Associated Press (July 2001).

When you're on top, you're on top.
~ Venus Williams (on Serena Williams), The Age (26 January 2003). Gracious in defeat

About the only time losing is more fun than winning is when you're fighting temptation.
~ Tom Wilson, Ziggy