Quotes

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

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

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.

When you're as great as I am, it's hard to be humble.

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

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 the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.

You can't hit what you can't see; I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee!

[after being rejected by the United States Army during the Vietnam War because he failed the "intelligence" test] I never said I was the smartest, I said I was the greatest.

I won a gold medal representing the USA at the Olympic Games in 1960, but when I came home, I still got treated like a nigger. There were restaurants I couldn't get served in. Some people kept calling me "boy".

Sonny Liston is too ugly to be world heavyweight champion!.

[on challenger Henry Cooper] If he talks some jive, I'll knock him out in round five.

I'm soooooooooooooooooo pretty!!!

I'm gonna float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, George [George Foreman] can't hit what his eyes can't see, now you see me, now you don't, he thinks he will but I know he won't.

My toughest fight was my first wife.

[on Elvis Presley] Elvis was my close personal friend. He came to my Deer Lake training camp about two years before he died. He told us he didn't want nobody to bother us. He wanted peace and quiet and I gave him a cabin in my camp and nobody even knew it. When the cameras started watching me train, he was up on the hill sleeping in the cabin. Elvis had a robe made for me. I don't admire nobody but Elvis Presley. He was the sweetest, most humble and nicest man you'd ever meet.

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

I ain't got nothing against them Vietcong.

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

[after the Supreme Court overturned his conviction for draft evasion] I've done my celebrating already. I said a prayer to Allah.

[observation, 1984] What I suffered physically was worth what I've accomplished in life. A man who is not courageous enough to take risks will never accomplish anything in life.

[after defeating Sonny Liston] I'm king of the world! I'm pretty! I'm a bad man! I shook up the world! I shook up the world! I shook up the world!

My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, some poor hungry people in the mud, for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger. They never lynched me. They didn't put no dogs on me.

[2004, asked what he thought when he looked back on the boxer he was] Sometimes, I feel a little sad because I can see how some things I said could upset some people. But I did not deliberately try to hurt anyone. The hype was part of my job, like skipping rope

[1999, on being crowned Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC] Ever since I first came here in 1963 to fight Henry Cooper, I have loved the people of England. They have always been extremely warm and welcoming to me, which is why I am especially honored to accept the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century. I give thanks to God and to all the people in the UK who have supported me over the years.

Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name, and I insist people using it when speaking to me and of me.

[1999, on being crowned Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC] I'd like to thank the British people for giving me this great welcome and thank you for this award. I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it - and I may come back.

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

I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; Handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick.

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