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Who really said it

To me, there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think. And number three, you should have your emotions moved to tears

Jim Valvano — but he said ‘we all’, not ‘everyone’ Jim Valvano 1946–1993 · American college basketball coach and broadcaster
Disputed In copyright

Not as it is usually quoted. The speaker, the speech and the date are all correct — this is Jim Valvano, accepting the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award at the first ESPY Awards on 4 March 1993, eight weeks before he died of cancer. What drifted is one phrase. Every transcript we could read gives the sentence as ‘To me, there are three things we all should do every day’, and the version in circulation swaps in ‘everyone’. The thought is genuinely his; the quotation marks are what this page is about.

Last verified 29 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed — copy with the correction

“To me, there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think. And number three, you should have your emotions moved to tears” Jim Valvano, acceptance speech, ESPY Awards, 4 March 1993 — but he said 'three things we all should do every day', not 'everyone'. Traced by Quotle.info. Verbatim: “To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. Number two is think. Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Jim Valvano. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright. A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the themes of happiness, purpose and mortality. Theme: "To me, there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think. And number three, you should have your emotions moved to tears". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "To me, there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think. And number three, you should have your emotions moved to tears". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What Valvano actually said

Occasion
The first ESPY Awards, Madison Square Garden, New York
Date
Thursday 4 March 1993
Award
The inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award
Wording quoted here
Transcript reads ‘we all’, not ‘everyone’

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day. Jim Valvano, ESPY Awards, 4 March 1993

The difference is one phrase, and it is the whole of this page: we all against everyone. It is a small drift and an easy one — the two mean the same thing — but a quotation that has been repaired for rhythm is no longer a quotation. Note also that the popular short form usually stops at ‘moved to tears’ and drops the line Valvano built the whole passage toward: if you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day.

Full transcript of the speech

How we checked the wording

  • A wording question is only ever settled by a transcript. Two of them, published independently of each other, carry this passage — and both read ‘there are three things we all should do every day’ Speakola’s transcript ↗
  • James Clear’s speech archive prints the same passage word for word, down to the closing line — ‘If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day’ a second, independent transcript ↗
  • The occasion is not in doubt. Valvano spoke at the first ESPY Awards at Madison Square Garden on Thursday 4 March 1993, accepting the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award, and used the speech to announce the V Foundation for Cancer Research the speech, the award and the date ↗
  • One caution for anyone sourcing this speech: the transcript pages do not agree on when it happened. Speakola’s own header dates it 3 March 1993 and places it in Los Angeles. The ceremony was on 4 March 1993 at Madison Square Garden in New York, and that is the date this page uses the first ESPY ceremony ↗
In copyright

This is a 1993 speech, so it is well inside United States copyright and will be for decades yet — there is no public-domain claim to make here. Copyright in the words would rest with Valvano’s estate; ESPN separately holds the television broadcast the speech is usually watched in. Quoting a passage with attribution, as this page does, is ordinary practice; reproducing the speech whole is a different question. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The wording problem

Nobody is falsely credited here. Valvano said this, on a stage, on a date we can name. What travelled is a slightly tidied version of his sentence, and the tidying is invisible unless you go back to a transcript.

Jim Valvano — but not in these words wording drift

‘There are three things everyone should do every day’ is the form that circulates. Both transcripts we read give ‘we all’. Same meaning, different sentence — and the difference matters on a page that puts it in quotation marks read the transcript ↗

Jim Valvano, 4 March 1993 confirmed against two transcripts

‘To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh …’ The passage closes on the line the short version usually loses: ‘If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day’ the second transcript ↗

4 March 1993, Madison Square Garden date drift in the transcript pages

Transcript sites disagree about the date and the city — Speakola’s header says 3 March, Los Angeles. The first ESPY Awards were held on 4 March 1993 at Madison Square Garden in New York. If you cite this speech, cite that the ceremony ↗

Genuinely Valvano, genuinely from the 1993 ESPY speech — and genuinely one word off. He said ‘we all’ the transcript ↗

Context

Why it mattered

Valvano was dying when he said it. He had been told his cancer had spread, he could not have known how few weeks were left, and he spent his time on a stage at Madison Square Garden setting out what a day should contain. That is why the sentence has the weight it does — it is not a wellness prescription, it is a man deciding out loud what is worth doing with the time he had.

The same speech announced the V Foundation for Cancer Research and gave it the motto Don’t Give Up … Don’t Ever Give Up. He died 55 days later.

If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day.

Getting this one right when you quote it

The sentence begins ‘To me, there are three things we all should do every day’ — not ‘everyone’.

The next sentence, almost always dropped, is ‘We should do this every day of our lives.’

The passage is built to land on its last line: ‘If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day.’ Quoting the three items without it stops one beat early.

The date is 4 March 1993 and the venue is Madison Square Garden, whatever a transcript page’s header says.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Happiness Purpose Mortality

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Jim Valvano, ESPY Awards 1993 — full transcriptspeakola.com

The transcript this page checks the wording against. Note its header date is wrong; the body is what matters.
‘Don’t Give Up’ — transcriptjamesclear.com

A second, independently published transcript. It agrees on ‘we all’.
Jim Valvanoen.wikipedia.org

The date of the speech, the name of the award, and the founding of the V Foundation.
ESPY Awarden.wikipedia.org

Confirms the first ceremony: 4 March 1993, Madison Square Garden, and Valvano as the inaugural Ashe Courage Award recipient.

The author

About Jim Valvano

Jim Valvano

1946–1993 · college basketball coach, broadcaster, founder of the V Foundation

Jim Valvano coached North Carolina State to the 1983 NCAA championship as heavy underdogs, in a final settled when Lorenzo Charles caught a team-mate’s desperate last-second shot short and dunked it as time expired. He later worked as a broadcaster. Diagnosed with metastatic cancer, he used his 4 March 1993 ESPY acceptance speech to announce the V Foundation for Cancer Research and gave it the motto Don’t Give Up … Don’t Ever Give Up. He died 55 days later, on 28 April 1993, aged 47.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Valvano, Jim. Acceptance speech, Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award, ESPY Awards, Madison Square Garden, New York, 4 March 1993. Transcript published by Speakola and by James Clear. The sentence as delivered reads ‘there are three things we all should do every day’.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘To me, there are three things everyone should do every day’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/to-me-there-are-three-things-everyone-should-do-every-day/

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