Muhammad Ali Quotes

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942) is a former three-time World Heavyweight Champion, who is widely considered one of the greatest heavyweight championship boxers  of all time. Ali was a great fighter and equally a great pre-match hype man.  He would “trash talk” opponents on television and in person before matches and often times would put together rhymes about them. These personality quips and idioms, along with an unorthodox fighting technique, made him a cultural icon. We’ve enjoyed a lot of these saying and would like to share them with you.

• A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

• 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.

• Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.

• 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.

• Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.

• Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

• Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life.

• Friendship… is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.

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

• I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.

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

• 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.

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

• I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

• I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin’ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

• 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.

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

• Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

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

• Superman don’t need no seat belt.

• 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.

• There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.

• 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.

• What keeps me going is goals.

• When you are as great as I am it is hard to be humble.

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