Muhammad Ali Boxing Quotations

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

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

It will be a killer, and a chiller, and a thriller, when I get the gorilla in Manila.

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

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

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'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.

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.

I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty.

Boxing is good for the livelihood but mainly, money don't really mean nothing.

I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,

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

Champions have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.

If you look at the world the same way when you're 50 that you did when you were 20, then you wasted 30 years.

On my twelfth birthday, I got a new bicycle as a present from my folks, and I rode it to a fair that was being held at the Columbia Gymnasium, and when I come out, my bike was gone. I was so mad I was crying, and a policeman, Joe Martin, come up and I told him I was going to whip whoever took my bike. He said I ought to take some boxing lessons to learn how to whip the thief better, and I did. That's when I started fighting.

I just try to stay half way decent looking. Boxing's a rough sport and you get hit a lot.

I was lucky, from the age of 12 I had boxing talent and was good for my age.

If you were surprised when Nixon resigned, just watch what happens when I whup Foreman's behind!

You been hearing about how bad I am since you were a little kid with mess in your pants! Tonight, I'm gonna whip you till you cry like a baby.

Unknown Make new friends but keep the old ones; one is silver and the other's gold.

I always liked to chase the girls. Parkinson's stops all that. Now I might have a chance to go to heaven.

That computer was made in Alabama

But when I looked at a lot of the questions they had on them army tests, I just didn't know the answers. I don't even know how to start after finding the answers. That's all.

If my fans think I can do everything I say I can do, then they're crazier than I am. After one of his fight predictions turned out to be wrong.

The outgoing and spontaneous person that the world knew while I was boxing was a persona that I created to sell tickets and promote my career. In my private life, I am quiet and reflective by nature.

Howard Cosell was gonna be a boxer when he was a kid only they couldn't find a mouthpiece big enough.

A lot of boxers' features change - mainly when I fight 'em

I just give lip service to being the greatest. He was the greatest.

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

His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see.

It all started to come together when I realized that boxing was how I was going to succeed in life.

I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.

He's too ugly to be the champ!

That's okay, I'm still the Greatest.

I've got it! I've got it! It'll make front-page headlines around the world. You can have me kidnapped, and then a couple of days before the fight I'll show up again

I'm so fast I run through a hurricane and not get wet. George Foreman is gonna pay me a dept.

Some gems for the greatest of them all

The show was bad, but I was great

I should be a postage stamp. That’s the only way I’ll ever get licked!

Death is the tax the soul has to pay for having a name and a form

Why are they picking on boxing? It's because the black men are so superior in boxing that they want to stop it. Well, the black man's so hungry he's got to fight.

A fighter can condition his body to go hard certain rounds, then to coast certain rounds.

Now you see me, now you don't. George thinks he will, but I know he won't!

That man was beautiful. Timing, speed, reflexes, rhythm, his body, everything was beautiful. And to me, still, I would say pound for pound...I'd say I'm the greatest heavyweight of all time, but pound for pound, I still say Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest of all time.

Whether it's boxing, basketball, or badminton, one must be ready to succeed before entering the arena...long before the lights come up.

You can be free. You can be black. Look at me! I'm the Heavyweight Champion! Can't nobody stop me.

I am so mean I've handcuffed lightnin' and thrown thunder in jail.

Will be a divine fight, a holy war...Armageddon on a miniature scale.

I wanted to keep these trunks as a souvenir." "Now look at them." "They were splattered with blood.

I saw that streak in him when he told me, 'Get the hell out of here or I'll wipe you out., I got the hell out of there, Liston really scared me.

I have the world heavyweight title not because it was 'given' to me, not because of my race or religion, but because I won it in the ring through my own boxing ability.

Holmes is so ugly, his grandmother said when he started to cry the tears would stop and roll down the back of his head.

If you wonder what the difference between them and me is, I'll break the news: you never heard of them. Most of them ... can fight almost as good as I can. I'm just saying you never heard of them.

I predict that this will be the greatest book ever and it will sell more than any other book in history

So I didn't pass. It was the army's decision that they didn't want me to go into the service. They're the boss. I don't want to say no whole lot about it.

I just felt the power and the meanness of the man I was messing with.

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

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

I can drown a drink of water. I can kill a dead tree. Don't mess with Muhammad Ali.

Frazier's got two chances. Slim, and none. And Slim just left town

I only read the Holy Koran, the Bible and the sports pages

Love is a net that catches hearts like a fish

I shook up the world.

The will must be stronger than the skill.

I want fifteen referees at this fight…because there ain’t no one man who can keep up with the pace I’m gonna set except me

People don't realise 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.

When my title was taken away boxing died.

If the boxers are a little more colorful, talk a little like I did and just do half as much as I did for boxing, it will be all right.

During my boxing career, you did not see the real Muhammad Ali. You just saw a little boxing and a little showmanship. It was after I retired from boxing that my true work began.

Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone and hospitalized a brick.

I'm the best. I just haven't played yet.