Footballs Most Inspirational Quotes

Posted by Lovely in Inspirational on Apr 21st, 2013 | 0 comments

Pro Football’s Most Inspirational Coach: Vince Lombardi

“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”

These words represent the philosophy of football’s most inspirational coach; Vince Lombardi. Although his coaching career was cut short due to his early death at 57 from cancer, Lombardi won six National Football League Championships and two Super Bowls in 10 years. His regular season record as an NFL head coach was 96-34-6 for a .738 winning percentage, the third highest in pro football history.

Lombardi came from humble beginnings as the son of an Italian immigrant who worked as a barber in Sheepshead Bay, Long Island. Vince hoped to play pro football after a successful stint as a starting defensive lineman at Fordham University, but he decided to forgo playing in order to support his young family. In 1939, Vince took a job at St. Cecilia High School, where he coached football and taught Latin, Physics and Chemistry for a salary of $900 a year.

After winning six high school championships, Lombardi began to climb the ladder in the coaching world, first at his old alma mater, Fordham, then on to West Point, and finally, as an assistant coach with pro football’s New York Giants. Then in 1959, Lombardi was offered the job of his dreams; head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

Vince took the Packers from a dismal 1-10-1 record the year before he arrived to a 7-5 record in his first season and he was named NFL Coach of the Year. Lombardi had a simple outlook on football that he expressed to his players at every opportunity: “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”

And winning was what Vince did best. His talented Green Bay teams went on to dominate the league with crushing defense and a powerful, take no prisoners offense. A true believer that a human being was defined by his character and his efforts to succeed, Lombardi refused to embrace the racial prejudice that was so common in the 20th century. Lombardi expressed his beliefs about equality in terms of pro football: “I view my players as neither black nor white, but Packer green.”

Before illness ended his coaching career and took his life, Vince won eight pro football world championships. Vince Lombardi will always be remembered as the greatest football coach who ever lived. A true leader in every respect, Vince left us with the final word on the meaning of leadership with one his most inspirational and motivational quotes: “Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”

Keep Love In Your Heart

Posted by Lovely in Love on Apr 4th, 2013 | 0 comments

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, the flamboyant Irish poet of the Victorian era, often spoke about the importance of love.

He was convinced that a life without love was meaningless and barren, a point he made to great effect with these immortal words: “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”

Throughout human history, love was often on the minds of our greatest poets, writers, artists, sages and philosophers. From them, we have been granted a vast library of powerful statements celebrating the noblest of human emotions. Take a moment to enjoy a sampler of famous love quotes from prominent personalities, both past and present, and gain further understanding about the passions of the human heart:

1. Richard Bach, author of the new age best seller, Jonathan Livingston Seagull:

“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.”

2. Judy Garland, Hollywood legend, actress and singer, star of the Wizard Of Oz:

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”

3. Rainer Maria Rilke, Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist:

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”

4. Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism and author of the first Surrealist Manifesto:

“All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.”

5. Rupert Brooke, an English poet, who wrote the legendary World War One poem, “The Soldier.”

Brooks died at 27 years of age from an infected mosquito bite while on the way to the disastrous landing at Gallipoli. About his death, his close friend, William Denis Browne, wrote, “I sat with Rupert. At 4 oíclock he became weaker, and at 4.46 he died, with the sun shining all round his cabin, and the cool sea-breeze blowing through the door and the shaded windows. No one could have wished for a quieter or a calmer end than in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and thyme.”

From Brooke, we receive this lovely quote on the subject of love:

“A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out the years.”

6. Our final quote comes from the finest songwriter of our time, the one and only Bob Dylan, who spoke these immortal words:

“May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.”