Words matter. These are the best Muhammad Ali Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
My trainer don’t tell me nothing between rounds. I don’t allow him to. I fight the fight. All I want to know is did I win the round. It’s too late for advice.
Never put your money against Cassius Clay, for you will never have a lucky day.
I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.
I didn’t want to submit to the army and then, on the day of judgment, have God say to me, ‘Why did you do that?’ This life is a trial, and you realize that what you do is going to be written down for Judgment Day.
If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.
If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.
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.
I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.
No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson’s. There’s no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.
I shook up the world, I shook up the world.
Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.
I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan and Rocky.
Ali’s got a left, Ali’s got a right – when he knocks you down, you’ll sleep for the night; and when you lie on the floor and the ref counts to ten, hope and pray that you never meet me again.
I don’t have to be what you want me to be.
My principles are more important than the money or my title.
It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
When I won the Golden Gloves in 1960, that made me realize I had a chance. And when I won at the Olympics, that sealed it: I was the champ.
No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
The white man is destroying the world.
The man who has no imagination has no wings.
I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven’t lived in vain.
You can’t keep your mind on fighting when you’re thinking about a woman. You can’t keep your concentration. You feel like sleeping all the time.
All of us are so mixed. My great-grandfather was white.
The name Muhammad is the most common name in the world. In all the countries around the world – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon – there are more Muhammads than anything else. When I joined the Nation of Islam and became a Muslim, they gave me the most famous name because I was the champ.
Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can’t talk. The man can’t fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he’s gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.
Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.
I said I was ‘The Greatest,’ I never said I was the smartest!
Go up in an airplane. Go high enough, and it’s like we don’t even exist.
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.
The Nation of Islam’s main focus was teaching black pride and self-awareness. Why should we keep trying to force ourselves into white restaurants and schools when white people didn’t want us? Why not clean up our own neighborhoods and schools instead of trying to move out of them and into white people’s neighborhoods?
We who follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad don’t want to be forced to integrate. Integration is wrong. We don’t want to live with the white man; that’s all.
Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.
Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.
A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
To make America the greatest is my goal, so I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole. And for the U.S.A. won the medal of gold. The Greeks said, ‘You’re better than the Cassius of old.’
I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.
It’s in my blood to be around people while I was training.
Life is so, so short. Bible says it’s like a vapor.
It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
The only thing that matters is submitting to the will of God.
I figure I’ll be champ for about ten years and then I’ll let my brother take over – like the Kennedys down in Washington.
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.
Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams – they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do – they all contain truths.
I’ve seen George Foreman shadow boxing, and the shadow won.
Don’t feel sorry for me.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
I’m more at home with my log cabins than I am in my house in Cherry Hill.
My only fault is that I don’t realize how great I really am.
Anywhere I go, there is always an incredible crowd that follows me. In Rome, as I land at the airport, even the men kiss me. I love Rome.
Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.
Joe Frazier got hit more than me – and he doesn’t have Parkinson’s.
If I said I would knock out Sonny Liston in 1 minute and 49 seconds of the first round, that would hurt the gate.
I’m the greatest thing that ever lived! I’m the king of the world! I’m a bad man. I’m the prettiest thing that ever lived.
I got no quarrel with them Vietcong.
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.
When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.
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.
At home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.
All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.
My way of joking is to tell the truth. That’s the funniest joke in the world.
I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I’m in a world of my own.
It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.
No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.
It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.
I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent I was given. I believed in myself, and I believe in the goodness of others.
Terrorists are not following Islam. Killing people and blowing up people and dropping bombs in places and all this is not the way to spread the word of Islam. So people realize now that all Muslims are not terrorists.
You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman’s behind.
America is the greatest country in the world.
The word ‘Islam’ means ‘peace.’ The word ‘Muslim’ means ‘one who surrenders to God.’ But the press makes us seem like haters.
I’m no leader; I’m a little humble follower.
I give thanks to God and to all the people in the U.K. who have supported me over the years.
If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.
