“Legacy is not what I did for myself. It’s what I’m doing for the next generation.”
“The worst thing in life is not to die but to live with bitterness.”
“I don’t look to God for my wins. I look for God in my daily life.”
“Sometimes I flashback and say, ‘Wow I’m still doing this. Wow, it’s crazy.’ And I’m very thankful, but I think my body needs a rest.”
“Everybody has haters and lovers. That’s what life is all about.”
“That’s how I live my life, with belief. I am a winner.”
“You’re going to have to swallow Vitor Belfort. I’m going to reinvent myself and come back different every time.”
“I thank God every day.”
“I don’t think Apple would be making the computers, the iPhone, being the top electronics company it is, if Steve Jobs didn’t have some regrets over mistakes he made and learned to overcome them.”
“The truth is the Vintage Vitor never left.”
“I want to create a better environment for the kids who look up to me. I want them to know I’m not a perfect man, but I am a man who is willing to pay the price to do what is right. That’s who I am.”
“We don’t have any kind of sponsors. The players invest themselves. They need money. They need resources… That’s why, in sports and teams, they have sponsors – in soccer, in the NFL. Everyone has sponsors who invest and help to pay daily expenses.”
“Sometimes you fall down, but you have to pick yourself back up.”
“Life is about seasons, and I think you got to know the seasons.”
“I’m very proud to tell you guys I have been accepted into Stanford University, one of the main institutions of learning and research in the world.”
“How many fighters are going to be able to leave the legacy that I did? Nineteen years old, I came and I conquered.”
“I’d fight any beast in the jungle, you know?”
“I don’t like this little word ‘if.’ If we start adding ‘if, if, if,’ that means I wouldn’t conquer anything completely.”
“In the natural life, we eat, we drink water, we give birth, we pay taxes. In the spiritual life, we can only reach it by faith.”
“We need to reinvent ourselves.”
“The Holy Spirit gives me everything I need.”
“I am very loyal to my principles.”
“I have tried hard to be a good person. It’s something I live for.”
“Everything you do involves sacrifice. My work is to honor my principles, my opponent, and what I believe in. I stand for it, I fight, and I try to get better every day as a human being.”
“I lost a lot of money with sponsors.”
“I’m a proper man.”
“The one thing the fans wanted to see is me getting the title shot.”
“The sweet feeling is knowing that nobody gave me anything for free.”
“I have the most loyal fans that have been with me since I was 19 years old, when I was just a young guy becoming a world champion.”
“I learned that education and sport are the bedrock for any person, but education comes first, no doubt about it.”
“It’s never late to go after your dreams. All it takes is believing and hard work.”
“Let me fight Jon Jones. I need that rematch.”
“I’m not retiring, because when you retire, you’re still getting paid. I’m not getting paid, so I’m not retiring.”
“People don’t know what pain is until they suffer.”
“I’ll focus on my training, no matter who I fight.”
“My body is not the same anymore for training. It’s too much pain. I did more than 14 surgeries. I left everything in the Octagon.”
“I believe the reason why I fight in Brazil is because I sell a lot in Brazil.”
“I’m just trying to be fair with everybody and also with myself.”
“Training for five-round fights is too much for the body.”
“I’m training like an animal. Nobody trains harder than me.”
“People say, ‘Oh, so you should retire.’ Yeah, you want me to retire so you won’t get knocked out. I won’t retire.”
“Eighteen years doing this, my friend. Eighteen years – combat sport. I think you will not find this in history, I believe.”
“I started very young… I learned my martial arts first in the street. There were always fights. That’s the culture in Brazil.”
“With Carlson Gracie, who saw something in me, I started learning and loved mixing together the martial arts.”
“By the time I was 17 years old, I already had my black belt.”
“I’d like to thank Jesus. He’s the one who changed my life.”
“What I want is the belt. It doesn’t matter who has it.”
“I have been fighting and winning all the fights in my division. I think I deserve a title shot.”
“I have a life of sacrifice. I don’t have a normal social life.”
“You’ve got to respect your body and know the time to transition to what’s next. A lot of athletes cannot transition. They don’t have nothing to do after.”
“I was the youngest champion of the UFC.”
“The way I want to be remembered is not the way I will be, and I’m cool with that.”
“I think when you’re happy with yourself, that’s what matters.”
“It’s not about motivation. It’s about what’s driven inside of you.”
“Having three kids at home is sometimes like dealing with Democrats and Republicans when you’re choosing a restaurant.”
“Life is politics.”
“I was always a man of the moment. I think it helped me go through things I went through in life.”
“I don’t even think in the future, pay-per-view is going to exist. You see Netflix and Amazon and what they’re doing, and that’s a model I think is going to grow and grow.”
“I have had regrets along the way, but when I leave this sport, I’ll do so with my head held high. I know I gave it my heart and soul, and I tried to learn and be better every day.”
“If you regret a mistake, don’t just make that mistake again. Look at it and learn from it and grow from it.”
“My hope is in God.”
“Some things really don’t matter.”
“Like in combat when you’re in chaos, a Navy SEAL in chaos, you cannot be afraid of dying for a cause.”
“Training is very tiring.”
“Training is what sacrifices. I see that in my body.”
“I’ve had some ups and downs in my personal life, but I have overcame them.”
“I work for the UFC, and whoever they say I fight, I will.”
“That’s the beauty of the fight: Anything can happen.”
“I trained karate in 2001 to fight Heath Herring.”
“You never show what you are going to do; you always do what the opponent doesn’t expect.”
“I made some adaptations, as I combined karate with my boxing game. I’m adding a couple of nice things from Shotokan to my game.”
“My idea is to have two bases. I keep my family in Rio, and when I have a fight scheduled, I will come to Vegas to train here at Xtreme Couture, which I consider the best place for a MMA fighter to be.”
“I just want to take one fight at a time.”
“Any fight that I have can be the last, or it can be the beginning.”
“Fighters can fight into their 50s. Why not?”
“I have lots of business outside of the Octagon, and I’m looking to have fun.”
“I live my life for Jesus.”
“My heart is so peaceful.”
“Everybody knows that people cheat, but I don’t.”
“I’m able to fight anywhere.”
“My mindset as an athlete and as a man is to accept what God is asking me to do and to live my life expressing God’s word.”
“I do believe my legacy outside of the Octagon is just as good as it is inside of it.”
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