"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall"
About this Quote
The subtext is accountability with a humane face. Lombardi isn’t telling you to “be positive.” He’s redirecting attention from the bruise (the fall) to the behavior afterward (the rise), where coaching actually has leverage: routines, conditioning, repetition, mental reps. In sports, falling is literal - missed tackles, blown assignments, losses on national TV - but it’s also reputational. For a team, the “rise” is film study, corrective drills, showing up the next week and executing anyway. For an athlete, it’s staying coachable when confidence is cracked.
Context matters: Lombardi coached in an era that loved toughness as theater, yet he sold toughness as process. The quote doubles as culture-setting inside a locker room. It tells players that mistakes won’t get them exiled if they respond correctly, while also warning them that self-pity is a nonstarter. That mix of permission and pressure is why it’s endured beyond football: it’s motivational, yes, but it’s also a blueprint for how high-performance environments keep moving without pretending the falls won’t happen.
Quote Details
| Topic | Perseverance |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Lombardi, Vince. (2026, January 14). The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greatest-accomplishment-is-not-in-never-22059/
Chicago Style
Lombardi, Vince. "The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greatest-accomplishment-is-not-in-never-22059/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greatest-accomplishment-is-not-in-never-22059/. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.








