Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

• A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.

• Ain't no reason for me to kill nobody in the ring.
  • Comment after the match with Jimmy Ellis was stopped by the referee in the twelfth round ( July 1971)

• All I want now is to be a nice, clean gentleman. I've proved my point. Now I'm going to set an example for all the nice boys and girls. I'm through talking.

• Be loud, be pretty and keep their black-hatin' asses in their chairs.

• Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name - it means beloved of God - and I insist people use it when speaking to me and of me.

• Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.

• Don't count the days, make the days count.

• Eat your words! Eat your words! I am the greatest.

• Fifteen referees. I want fifteen referees to be at this fight because there ain't no one man who can keep up with the pace I'm gonna set except me. There's not a man alive who can whup me. I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked.

• Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

• Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.

• God gave me this illness to remind me that I'm not number One; he is.

• Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.

• He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

• I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs.
  • Explaining why he refused induction into the US Army.

• I am America. I am the part you won't recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky— my name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me.

• I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.

• I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace.

• I don't always know what I'm talking about, but I know I'm right.

• I done wrassled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale, Only last week I murdered a rock, Injured a stone, hospitalized a brick, I'm so mean I make medicine sick.

• I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

• I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.

• I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
  • Statement after losing his first fight to Ken Norton (March 31, 1973)

• I say get an education. Become an electrician, a mechanic, a doctor, a lawyer— anything but a fighter. In this trade, it's the managers that make the money and last the longest.

• I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

• I'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.
  • Prior to a boxing match with Floyd Patterson

• I'm a Muslim. I've been a Muslim for 20 years. . . . You know me. I'm a boxer. I've been called the greatest. People recognize me for being a boxer and a man of truth. I wouldn't be here representing Islam if it were terrorist. . . . I think all people should know the truth, come to recognize the truth. Islam is peace.

• I'm gonna have to be killed before I lose, and I ain't going to die easy.

• I'm not the greatest; I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round.

• I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

• I'm the best. I just haven't played yet.
  • When asked about his Golf game

• I'm the most recognized and loved man that ever lived cuz there weren't no satellites when Jesus and Moses were around, so people far away in the villages didn't know about them.

• If Ali says a mosquito can pull a plow, don't ask how. Hitch him up.

• If my fans think I can do everything I say I can do, then they're crazier than I am.

• If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

• If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.

• It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.

• It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I just beat people up.

• It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself.

• It's not bragging if you can back it up.

• My toughest fight was with my first wife.

• My way of joking is to tell the truth.

• Old age is just a record of one's whole life.

• Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

• People don't realize what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.

• Pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.

• Prejudice comes from being in the dark; sunlight disinfects it.

• Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams — they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do — they all contain truths.

• Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
  • Variant: The service you do for others is the rent you pay for the time you spend on earth.

• Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

• Superman don't need no seat belt.
  • Comment to a flight attendant, who replied: "Superman don't need no airplane, either."

• The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

• The man who has no imagination has no wings.

• The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

• There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

• To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you're not, pretend you are.

• To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.

• Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

• We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God is all that will last.

• When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

• Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

• You can go to Japan, China, all the European, African, Arab, and South American countries, and man, they know me. I can't name a nation where they don't know me.

• When you're as great as I am, it's hard to be humble.
  • Variant: It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.