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Motivation Quote by Vince Lombardi

"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence"

About this Quote

Confidence isn’t just a private feeling in Lombardi’s world; it’s a team-wide weather system. As a coach, he’s naming a truth every locker room knows but few articulate cleanly: belief spreads faster than strategy. The line is engineered like a play call - short, repeatable, and built to travel from mouth to mouth until it becomes a norm. “Contagious” is the key choice. It frames morale as something you catch, not something you choose, which quietly shifts responsibility onto the most visible people in the room: captains, quarterbacks, coaches. If you’re leading and you’re shaky, you’re not merely human; you’re hazardous.

The second sentence is the knife twist. It refuses the feel-good version of motivational talk where positivity is a special superpower. Lombardi insists the opposite spreads with equal force, maybe more. That symmetry makes the quote useful as discipline: your doubts aren’t harmless, your cynicism isn’t “just being realistic,” your slumped shoulders aren’t neutral. They’re messaging.

Context matters: Lombardi coached in an era that mythologized toughness, clarity, and command. This is less about self-esteem than about performance under pressure - how a team behaves when the score tightens and the crowd turns. Subtext: confidence is partly theater, and the leader’s job is to stage it convincingly enough that others borrow it. The intent isn’t to deny fear; it’s to prevent fear from becoming organizational culture.

Quote Details

TopicConfidence
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Lombardi, Vince. (2026, January 17). Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/confidence-is-contagious-so-is-lack-of-confidence-25025/

Chicago Style
Lombardi, Vince. "Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/confidence-is-contagious-so-is-lack-of-confidence-25025/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/confidence-is-contagious-so-is-lack-of-confidence-25025/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi (June 11, 1913 - September 3, 1970) was a Coach from USA.

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