90+ LeBron James Quotes That Will Inspire You To Keep Going

Deepthi Reddy
Dec 12, 2023 By Deepthi Reddy
Originally Published on Jan 29, 2021
Edited by Monisha Kochhar
LeBron James
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Age: 0-99
Read time: 14.9 Min

Why LeBron James Quotes?

LeBron James is not only one of the greatest basketball players of all time, but he is also a role model for individuals of all ages. His dedication to his craft and his willingness to give back to his community make him a true inspiration.

LeBron James is a household name known for his incredible basketball talent and leadership on and off the court.

Throughout his career, LeBron has inspired and motivated countless individuals with his words and actions. His journey and approach to life are an inspiration to all.

What Parents Should Know

  • LeBron Raymone James Sr. is an American professional basketball player who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as of 2023. He has a wealth of experience and knowledge to draw upon, making his words of wisdom particularly impactful.
  • James and his family struggled to function for most of his youth due to poverty and street violence and Anthony McClelland, James' father, was an ex-convict.
  • His quotes cover various topics, including hard work, perseverance, and adversity. These quotes are perfect for anyone looking for motivation and inspiration to keep pushing forward and striving for success.

What To Discuss With Kids

  • LeBron James' quotes can serve as valuable lessons for kids, teaching them the importance of hard work and determination.
  • Discussing these quotes can also provide an opportunity for kids to reflect on their own goals and how they can apply LeBron's words to their own lives. These quotes can also serve as a springboard for discussing character, leadership, and personal growth.
  • His nickname is King James, and he has the words 'Chosen 1' tattooed on his arm.
  • At the age of 18, he was the NBA's youngest player to be picked.
  • LeBron stands 6 ft 8 in (2 m) tall and weighs 250 lb (113.4 kg).
  • He shoots predominantly with his right hand, despite being left-handed.

LeBron James Inspirational Quotes

1. "Warren Buffet told me once and he said always follow your gut. When you have that gut feeling, you have to go with don’t go back on it."

2. "I hear that word pressure all the time. There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself."

3. "You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed. You’re not gonna succeed all the time and I know that."

4. "The only thing on my mind right now is trying to win the whole thing."

5. "I enjoy the competition and whatever it takes throughout the competition, I will do it."

6. "I told myself if I ever made it to the level I want to be at, I'm gonna give back."

7. "I always say, decisions I make, I live with them. There's always ways you can correct them or ways you can do them better. At the end of the day, I live with them."

8. "Once you squeeze toothpaste out, you can't put it back into the tube. The same is true with our words. Once we say something hurtful, we can't take it back."

9. "You know, my family and friends have never been yes-men: 'Yes, you're doing the right thing, you're always right.' No, they tell me when I'm wrong, and that's why I've been able to stay who I am and stay humble."

LeBron James Motivational Quotes

10. "Maybe my pain was motivation."

11. "Sometimes your best effort just isn’t good enough."

12. "You know, when I have a bad game, it continues to humble me and know that, you know, you still have work to do and you still have a lot of people to impress."

13. "You have to be able to accept failure to get better."

14. "Don’t be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed."

15. "We have an opportunity to get better."

16. "I do have motivation. A lot of motivation."

17. "I just bring the determination to win."

18. "If I could have gave more, I would have done it. I gave everything I had."

19. "We aren't comfortable. We are not satisfied. We have to stay even-keeled."

20. "All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough. They will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. They will tell you no.

a thousand times no. until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no. Quite firmly and very quickly. And you will tell them yes."

LeBron James Famous Quotes

21. "Ask me to play. I'll play. Ask me to shoot. I'll shoot. Ask me to pass. I'll pass. Ask me to steal, block out, sacrifice, lead, dominate. Anything. But it's not what you ask of me. It's what I ask of myself."

22. "Nothing is given. Everything is earned."

23. "Greatness is defined by how much you want to put into what you do."

24. "I laugh and joke, but I don’t get distracted very easily."

25. "I hear my friends and my mom tell me I'm special, but honestly, I still don’t get it."

26. "Every night on the court I give my all, and if I’m not giving 100 percent, I criticize myself."

27. "Once you become a professional athlete or once you do anything well, then you’re automatically a role model…I have no problem being a role model, I love it. I have kids looking up to me and hopefully I inspire these kids to do good things."

28. "In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. You work for what you have."

29. "Some times your best effort just isn't good enough."

30. "I always believed that I'd return to Cleveland and finish my career there. I just didn't know when."

31. "That's one of my biggest obstacles. I'm afraid of failure. I want to succeed so bad that I become afraid of failing."

32. "I feel confident because I'm the best player in the world. It’s that simple."

33. "I'm ready to accept the challenge. I'm coming home."

34. "I'm a guy who tries to be successful in all that I do, and when you fall short, it hurts."

35. “My dream has become a reality now, and it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had.”

36. "A friend told me 'I guess you gotta go through a lot of nightmares, before you finally, you know, accomplish your dreams.'"

37. “I just do what I got to do and go out and be myself, on and off the court, and take care of my obligations. That’s generally your own destiny-knowing what you have to take care of.”

38. "I'm LeBron James, from Akron, Ohio, from the inner city. I'm not even supposed to be here. That's enough. Every night I walk into the locker room, I see a No. 6 with James on the back, I'm blessed. So what everybody says about me off the court, don't matter. I ain't got no worries."

LeBron James Quotes On Life

39. "You know, God gave me a gift to do other things besides play the game of basketball."

40. "But ever since I was a kid, I was always the winner."

41. "Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to winning? How committed are you to being a good friend?

To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There’s that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?"

42. "I'm going to use all my tools, my God-given ability, and make the best life I can with it."

43. "I think the reason why I'm the person who I am today is because I went through those tough times when I was younger."

44. "Being the only man in the household with my mom definitely helped me grow up fast."

45. "But sports carried me away from being in a gang or being associated with drugs. Sports was my way out."

46. "Something just doesn’t pop under your nose; you have to work for it."

47. "The best teacher in life is experience."

48. "You have to do what’s best for you and what’s going to make you happy at the end of the day, because no one can live with the consequences or anything that comes with your decision besides you."

49. “People who say “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” never felt a broken heart.”

50. "Basketball isn't easy.

All my life I've been striving to make myself better. It's a full time commitment.

To be the best, you have to work the hardest.

You have to chase what seems impossible over and over and over again, because giving up is not an option, and when you feel like you've reached your limit, it's only the beginning, that's when the time to dig deep, to find the courage to push some more, because if you've got the drive, the discipline, and the resolve to do what it takes to make yourself great, then the rewards are endless."

51. “I’m just a little kid from Akron.”

52. “For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of.

But all I cared about was her being home.”

53. "In the next 15 or 20 years, I hope I'll be the richest man in the world. That's one of my goals. I want to be a billionaire.

I want to get to a position where generation on generation don't have to worry about nothing. I don't want family members from my kids to my son's kids to never have to worry. And I can't do that now just playing basketball."

54. “My mom and I have always been there for each other. We had some tough times, but she was always there for me.”

55. "Akron, Ohio, is my home. I will always be here. I'm still working out at my old high school."

56. "I'm taking my talents to South Beach."

57. "My father wasn't around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, 'Why me? Why don't I have a father?

Why isn't he around? Why did he leave my mother?' But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, 'I don't know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?'"

LeBron James Leadership Quotes

58. "I hate letting my teammates down. I know I'm not going to make every shot.

Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don't feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win."

59. "I think team first. It allows me to succeed, it allows my team to succeed."

60. "This is a job and we want to have fun. But it's a job and we should look like we're going to work."

61. "There are some teams and logos you see, no matter where you are in the world, and you know exactly who they are and what they mean."

62. "When you have that respect from your teammates, it makes it a lot more comfortable."

63. “I have short goals – to get better every day, to help my teammates every day – but my only ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship. It's all that matters. I dream about it. I dream about it all the time, how it would look, how it would feel. It would be so amazing.”

64. “I love the success of my teammates more than my individual achievements. I've just always cared more about that since I started playing.”

65. “As a man, if you got a problem with somebody, you sit down face to face and you talk to them eye to eye. And you hash it out and move on.”

66. "I'm a guy who is just trying to be successful in whatever I do, and I give everything to my teammates, give everything to the coaching staff.

When you fall short, it hurts and it eats at you, and it hurts me to know that I wish I could have done better and done more and just put a little bit more effort or whatever the case may be to help us get over the hump. But it just wasn't our time."

67. "To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players."

68. “I've always been an unselfish guy, and that's the only way I know how to play on the court and I try to play to the maximum of my ability – not only for myself but for my teammates.”

69. “No matter how good one individual is, it takes a whole team to win a championship.”

70. “When you work out or you're doing anything active, it's more fun as a group. You may lose track of the time, and the next thing you know, you're working out for two hours because you're having fun.”

LeBron James Quotes About Haters

71. "I like criticism. It makes you strong."

72. "I don't want to be Kobe, I want to be LeBron."

73. "Your hate makes me stronger."

74. "I need music. It's like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what's going on – bad games, press, whatever!"

75. “I can't worry about what other people say.”

76. "All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today.

They have the same personal problems they had today.

I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.

They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point."

77. “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.”

LeBron James Basketball Quotes

Basketball Player hitting a shot

78. "I treated it like every day was my last day with a basketball."

79. "I don't need too much. Glamour and all that stuff don't excite me. I am just glad I have the game of basketball in my life."

80. "I make impact plays. I make game-changing plays."

81. "I feel my calling here goes above basketball. I have a responsibility to lead, in more ways than one, and I take that very seriously."

82. "There's no reason to play in the NBA if you don't believe you can win it all."

83. "I'm like a superhero. Call me Basketball Man."

84. "The first time I stepped on an NBA court I became a businessman."

85. "My game is really played above time.

I don't say that like I'm saying I'm ahead of my time. I'm saying, like, if I'm on the court and I throw a pass, the ball that I've thrown will lead my teammate right where he needs to go, before he even knows that that's the right place to go to."

86. "A lot of players know how to play the game, but they really don't know how to play the game, if you know what I mean.

They can put the ball in the hoop, but I see things before they even happen. You know how a guy can make his team so much better? That's one thing I learned from watching Jordan."

87. "My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn't realize that four years ago. I do now."

88. "I like to get out and get up the court, using my speed and aggressiveness toward the hoop."

89. "I don't want to be called a point guard, but I can't stop it."

90. "To be honest, the play that was drawn up, I scratched it. I just told coach, 'Give me the ball.' We're either going to go to overtime or I'm going to win it for us. It was that simple."

91. "If you put everything together as far as my mind, my body, my game. If you put everything in one bottle, this is probably the best I've been."

92. "Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn't."

93. "Basketball is my passion, I love it. But my family and friends mean everything to me. That's what's important. I need my phone so I can keep in contact with them at all times."

94. "You know, I'm just 6'9" and 260. And just so happen to be very good at playing the game of basketball."

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Sources

https://graciousquotes.com/lebron-james/

https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/10-lebron-james-quotes-from-his-legendary-career-that-will-inspire-you.html

https://wealthygorilla.com/21-most-inspirational-lebron-james-quotes/

https://www.overallmotivation.com/quotes/lebron-james-quotes/

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/lebron-james-quotes

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Written by Deepthi Reddy

Master of Business Administration

Deepthi Reddy picture

Deepthi ReddyMaster of Business Administration

With an MBA under her belt, Deepthi has discovered her true calling in content writing. Her writing repertoire is diverse, covering travel, movies, pet care, parenting, animals and birds, and more. Her joy of learning and creating has helped her craft well-written and engaging articles. When she isn't writing, Deepthi enjoys exploring new cultures, trying different foods, and spending quality time with her two children aged 7 and 12.

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