Dan Gable Quotes

Gold medals aren't really made of gold. They're made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.

Once you've wrestled, everything in life is easy.

Pain is nothing compared to what it feels like to quit. Give everything you got today for tomorrow may never come.

The 1st period is won by the best technician. The 2nd period is won by the kid in the best shape. The 3rd period is won by the kid with the biggest heart.

I’m a big believer in starting with high standards and raising them. We make progress only when we push ourselves to the highest level. If we don’t progress, we backslide into bad habits, laziness and poor attitude.

When I'd get tired and want to stop, I'd wonder what my next opponent was doing. I'd wonder if he was still working out. I'd tried to visualize him. When I could see him working, I'd start pushing myself. When I could see him in the shower, I'd push myself harder.

If you're afraid to fail, you'll never succeed.

Raising your level of performance requires a proper mentality and meaning from within. This gives you the ability and drive to work on the things necessary to go to a higher level. When people ask me how to raise their level of performance, the first thing I ask is, How important is it to you?

Wrestling... what men do during boys basketball season.

More enduringly than any other sport, wrestling teaches self-control and pride. Some have wrestled without great skill - none have wrestled without pride.

Determination is the strength needed to succeed.

A clean, hard-fought wrestling match is the most honest of athletic contests. There is no technological interventions, no teammates to blame, no panel of judges to bias the score. In wrestling, you compete or you quit. No alibis. I like that

Talent is everywhere, winning attitude is not.

There's always ways of motivating yourself to higher levels. Write about it, dream about it. But after that, turn it into action. Don't just dream.

Always remember the pain of defeat, and never let it happen again.

I shoot, I score. He shoots, I score.

When I lifted weights, I didn't lift just to maintain my muscle tone. I lifted to increase what I already had, to push to a new limit. Every time I worked, I was getting a little better. I kept moving that limit back and back. Every time I walked out of the gym, I was a little better than when I walked in.

The easiest thing to do in the world is pull the covers up over your head and go back to sleep.

I vowed I wouldn't ever let anyone destroy me again. I was going to work at it every day, so hard that I would be the toughest guy in the world. By the end of practice, I wanted to be physically tired, to know that I'd been through a workout. If I wasn't tired, I must have cheated somehow, so I stayed a little longer.

Great wrestlers make other wrestlers great

I never won anything by myself. I was always strong because of help that gave me extra strength to win.

There is no mat space for malcontents or dissenters. One must neither celebrate insanely when he wins, nor sulk when he loses. He accepts victory professionally, humbly; he hates defeat, but makes no poor display of it.

You can't ever work too much because there's no such thing as being in too good condition. You can't ever lift too many weights because you can't ever get too strong. You can't ever wrestle too much because you can always do better.

A lot of my intensity in wrestling was due to my mental preparation before the matches. I got myself into a different world.

If you are afraid to fail, you will never succeed.