Don King Quotations

I would never know how good I was if I didn't have Bob Arum. Bob Arum is white, Jewish; He was working for prosecutor's office. I'm black, an ex-convict, ex-number runner. Who would be most likely to succeed? It would be Bob 100-1. Yet I beat Bob on everything we ever done, with love.

Martin Luther King took us to the mountain top: I want to take us to the bank

Machiavelli taught me it was better to be feared than loved. Because if you are loved they sense you might be weak. I am a man of the people and help them but it is important to do so through strength.

I'm a promoter of the people for the people and by the people and my magic lies in my people ties.

Reality show? You can't find anything better than boxing because of the trials and errors, the ups and downs, the struggle when you get knocked down to get back up. Use it symbolically and interchangeably for life.

You can't rule the world, but what you can do is win the world with love and understanding.

My career is one of people involvement. I'm a promoter of the people, by the people, for the people. My magic lies, my people ties, this is what I want to do. I'm in it to win, I cant give in, I can't give up and I cant quit. Victory is mine. Working together works.

Hypocrisy is the mother of all evil and racial prejudice is still her favourite child.

You go for the quality of the performance, not the longevity of it.

I don't promote boxing, I promote people. Boxing is a catalyst to bring people together.

It ain't about if he knocks a guy out. It's about how he knocks a guy out. It's the style, the improvisation.

Muhammad Ali - he was a magnificent fighter and he was an icon... Every head must bow, every knee must bend, every tongue must confess, thou art the greatest, the greatest of all time, Muhammad, Muhammad Ali.

I transcend earthly bounds. I never cease to amaze myself because I haven't yet found my limits. I am quite ready to accept the limits of what I can do, but every time I feel that way - boom! - God touches me and I do something that's even more stupendous than whatever I've done up to then.

If you cast your bread upon the water and you have faith, you'll get back cash. If you don't have faith, you'll get soggy bread.

You can be the greatest guy in the world but if you ain't got no heart, you ain't gonna survive.

There's nothing I love more in life than turning around a bigot.

Only in America can a Barack Obama happen. Only in America can a Don King happen.

My hair is God's aura. Everything went up when I got home from the penitentiary. One night I went to lie down next to my wife, and my hair started popping and uncurling all on its own - ping, ping, ping, ping! I knew that it was God telling me to stay on the righteous path so he could one day pull me up to be there with him.

If a bullfrog had wings it wouldn't bump his behind every time he hopped.

He worked for the day when all people would be clothed in dignity.

Mike Tyson has been given every penny he has coming.

Mike Tyson was one of the most terrific athletes I've ever met.

I will fight for America until the day I drop.

All of my fighters should get down on their knees and thank me for what I've done for them.

We're here to make sure people of all colors realize that boxing is in the ascendancy, and these two fighters are driving the rocket.

Many people are criticizing the slowness of the process,

Mayweather should have been disqualified. The fighter had a third man in the ring. That is unheard of. The third man was chasing my fighter around. No matter how you look at it the fighter is disqualified.

gained his fame not by winning, but by losing.

He has blinding hand speed and great dexterity. He can punch going forwards and backwards which is the mark of a true champion. There's no one like him in the world today.

He has all the confidence. He moves like a pro in only his second fight and he had hand speed that's just terrific.

James Brown died owing me $50,000. But I loved James Brown.

I think we've done well this year. We've competed in some of the big tournaments and did a nice job.

I think Amir Khan is great. He showed great dexterity and lateral movement - Amir Khan has got it all.

Without a doubt there is a lot of pride for them at this golf course. This is their turf. They've got a great golf course, and it's a dark day when they don't win here.

When they commit to doing something, they commit. There's no holding back.

If you envy me whatever modicom of success that I enjoy, you must also envy me my time, my labour, my finance, my anxiety, my frustration and my determination. Jose Sulaiman is the greatest boxing man that I have ever met. I think he is a knight in shining armour for the boxer, but I always insulate myself with the rules.

If you are a blackman in America and get stopped by the police, make sure you have a vidio camera. Don't rely on some passerby to film the beating. Rodney King was just lucky.

Out of all the fighters that I have developed, clothed, financed, Gerrie Coetzee is the only one who had the decency to say 'thanks'.

When I came into boxing, when it was more out of control, no fighters got an opportunity to fight. I came in: everybody got an opportunity to make a living in America.

If he says he has the pizzazz and the sizzle, I have the steak, and substance. I've made more money than he's made. I've made bigger deals than he's made, when he's got the complexion to get the protection.

I've whipped the Harvard graduate's ass. Nothing against Harvard - it's a hell of a school - but there I was, twenty five yards behind, wrapped in leg irons, and I beat him.

I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation.

His credibility is zilch, virtually nil.

You know what animals exist in the desert. He's going to his indigenous natural habitat. What better place for night crawlers?

I'll pay them right after it snows in Panama. Let Eleta pay them if he feels so strongly about it.

I dare to be great. The man without imagination stands unhurt and hath no wings. This is my credo, this is my forte.

When you can count your money, you ai'nt got none.

Don King is a damn sleezebag. King is nothing but a strong-arm man. He has taken his gangsterism and put it into boxing.

He speaks English, Spanish, and he's bilingual too.

You must believe the unbelievable, snatch the possible out of the impossible.

Bonjour to all the beautiful people of Montreal because this is like home to me. We had Sugar Ray Leonard here who changed the globe and took on Roberto Duran right here in Montreal. How did we get to Montreal? Because it's one of the fairest cities in the world. We were looking for a neutral site and we picked Montreal. Sugar Ray Leonard came in and Roberto Duran beat him - because we got our fair shake in Montreal.

You can see the clouds rolling in and thunder is imminent.

Bernard Hopkins' accomplishments and achievements are far beyond that of the norm.

I'm an ardent American Football fan.

Against the odd's, I have persevered, I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation. I have coffee and cocktails with presidents and dictators. I'm an international figure, a citizen of the world. I've made it.

America is the greatest country in the world - I love America. What I've accomplished could not have been done anywhere else.

Man, I've been to jail. It was hell in there, but I survived, If they put me back, I'll come out again. I'm one of the world's great survivors. I'll always survive because I've got the right combination of wit, grit and bullshit.

Do I play tennis? Man, I had one of the baddest overhead rights of anyone. Bam!

Mike Tyson has been given ever penny he has coming.

Larry is like a son to me and we enjoy a most wonderful relationship, one with meaning, dignity, pride, understanding and purpose. But more importantly, one of mutual respect. Larry and I both pride ourselves on being men of our word and when we say we will be together for life it is not just convention but is said with feeling and commitment that comes from struggling together, growing together and being family.

Only in america will you see people circling the parking lot looking for a close space at a gym.

There's only been three giant promoters in our lifetime. There's Michael Todd, P.T. Barnum, and yours truly.

Integrity, number one. Even in business that's predicated on lies I refuse to become part of the lies that is all-consuming.

People are my most important asset. Faith in the supreme being, trust, credibility and performance are the things that have brought me to the top.

I cant believe that having said what I said was interpreted as having been what I said when I said it, because I said it where I said it, when I said it, and who I said it to.

The Dies tournament is always hard. We look forward to it every year from a competitive level. This is one of the biggest highlights of our season. This tournament has excellent tradition.

I can't believe what I said about myself. What I said in my own private conversations with myself to an ESPN producer are my business, and I had no business saying them to someone else.

I never get tired because it ain't energy that's being dispenced. It is GOD speaking through me.

They went down the list of every known charge conceivable to man - rackeering, skimming, kickback, ticket scalping. fixing fights, preordaining fights, vitaiting officials, corrupting judges, all the way down to laundering money. Everything but the Lindbergh baby.

Michael seems to have lost his values temporarily. He just has to be worked with, disciplined and talked to and given some tender loving care and understanding.

There's only one rule anyone connected with boxing must keep in mind - everything you here in boxing is a lie.

I will fight for America till the day I drop.

I don't see you making a movie about Bob Arum.

I wasn't getting invited to any board meetings. I had to kick the door down.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I stand before you a free man. Free in body, free in spiret and free in mind! It has been a long, hard and excruciatingingly painful road. For more than five years there has been one investigation after another and now, vindication. And to give the proper dimension I take the cherished words of the late great Dr Martin Luther King: Free at last...thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.

You see, the problem with me is I'm so good even my friends think I'm doing something wrong. Flair and flamboyance is not illegal. It may be detestable, it may be offensive, but it's not illegal.

Man O' War was a great racehorse, but if I put a extra 20 pounds on him they would say I was cruel to the animal. So don't ask me to do that to Chavez.

I am a product of a rat and roach infested black ghetto. It is easy for me to rationalize my dealings as a numbers man. I'll defend men today who are involved in it.

I am so happy to be at Barclays Center. When I saw Brett Yormark, I thought to myself that he and his brother Michael are doing an amazing job.

You don't get nothing from sleep but a dream.

This is a setback. You get back up, you dust yourself off, and you get back in the game. We had a great singer named Ray Charles who wrote a song called 'Drowning in My Tears.' You can't afford to drown in your tears. You gotta go back, rededicate yourself, redouble your efforts, and persevere.

Opportunity is the greatest charity.

I never cease to amaze myself. And I say this humbly

Oh yes, the Klitschkos. They got to learn how to fight. Period. But I'll tell you one thing - they're great human specimens. And I'd be happy to be able to work with them. If they chose to work with me. They had an opportunity when they got free of Peter Kohl - they didn't come to me. You know, I'm with who's with me. And I really don't care what fighter it is. I would be happy to promote them..Who could beat Vitali? Rahman could beat Vitali. His style is suited to beat Vitali....

If you want to sell a steak, you can't just have the sizzle, you gotta have sauce.

When you lose the title, that doesn't mean you lose the contract to what you had. Just like when you win the title, it doesn't mean you win brains, PhDs and MAs.

There's nothing wrong with options. Options are everywhere. In movies, in sports. Options is not a dirty word. I need to pay my overheads, you know. I invest a lot of money developing a fighter and then I deserve to reap the rewards.

Who would you vote most likely to succeed? Bob Arum - White, Jewish, a graduate of Harvard, a Kennady Raider, United States Attorney. Don King - black, poor, out of the hard core getto of Cleveland, Ohio, numbers runner, a little confectionary dealer, ex-convict. Now who would you vote to succeed? It would be hands down........ Yet in this great land called America, I have out performed, outachieved, been more recognizable, did more, broke more records, and had more of a phenominal career, where Arum can't tie my shoe string. You understand?

You ever stop to think they can't rob you of knowledge? They can strip you and you've still got it.

From the very beginning I used sound business practices in everything I did. White businessman uses them to make money he's a genius. Black businessman uses them he's a crook. That's the way it is.

Only in America could a Don King happen.

She's (Christy Martin) voluptuous and intoxicating no smear lipstick. Here's a woman who pounds it out and her lipstick don't smear. Revlon should jump on that like white on rice, you know what I mean? Max Factor, Elizabeth Arden.

I'm the best promoter in the world because I haven't taken a day off work since I left the penitentiary, and because I have read all the great philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinine.

I had a moment of religious epiphanosity.

Only in America can you find so many angry people claiming to love their country, while hating almost anyone in it.

When we started, it was based on lies. It's changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You've got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's becoming very confusing.

You sign an agreement; you make a contract, you live up to it. You never get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. You got a right to say yay or nay.

When Roger Mayweather entered the ring, it disqualified the fight. The Nevada Commission has the discretionary power to do as they may. They had the power to disqualify the fight, but they decided not to exercise that power.

We are coming to win and I think so much of Evans that I'm coming to Cardiff so we can go back with the belt to America.

Prior to Mike Tyson, we were generating close to $100 million a year. Now, Mike Tyson generates $100 million a fight.