Serena Williams on Stoicism Quotes

"You can't be afraid to fail. You've got to be able to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and go back out there."

"If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that's concentration."

"I've had to learn to fight all my life - got to learn to keep smiling. If you smile things will work out."

"I don't think about the legacy. I just think about the next match."

"I’ve always said that if I’m playing my best, no one can beat me."

"I am a perfectionist. I'm pretty much an insatiable perfectionist."

"The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up."

"I am not a person that gives up. I am a person that keeps going."

"You can be whatever you want to be, as long as you believe in yourself and work hard."

"Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come."

"Since I don't look like every other girl, it takes a while to be okay with that. To be different. But different is good."

"Victory is very, very sweet. It tastes better than any dessert you've ever had."

"A champion isn't about how much they win, but how they can come back from a point of adversity."

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. Oh wait, that's Babe Ruth. But I feel the same about my aces."

"I’m a very determined person. When I set my mind to something, I usually do it."

"I've grown most not from victories, but from setbacks. If winning is God's reward, then losing is how he teaches us."

"I just never give up. I fight to the end. You can't go out and say, 'I want a bag of chips.' You have to work."

"I decided I can’t pay a person to rewind time, so I may as well get over it."

"I think you have to love yourself before you can expect anyone else to love you."

"I am not going to stop until I get there."

"Everything comes at a cost. Just what are you willing to pay for it?"

"You have to be your own cheerleader."

"The day I stop being a student is the day I stop being a champion."

"Overcoming the fear of failure is the most important part of being a champion."

"I'm not used to crying. It's a little difficult. All my life I've had to be a fighter."

"I’ve always been a fighter and I’ve always fought through things my whole life."

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

"I don't like to lose — at anything — yet I've grown most not from victories, but from setbacks."

"I'm really good at blocking things out. I've had to be."

"I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall."

"I love who I am, and I encourage other people to love and embrace who they are."

"I'm a athlete, and I'm a black woman, and I'm a mother, and I'm a wife. I'm all these things, and I have to find a way to balance them."

"To this day, I don't like losing. It's just not in my DNA."