MUHAMMAD ALI

I shook up the world, I shook up the world.

No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room.

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

God tries you in certain, certain ways. Some people are rich, and they believe in God. They lose the money, things get hard, they get weak and quit going to church. Quit serving God like they did.

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

It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.

All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.

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

People don't realize what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.

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.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.

The fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain't ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principals make a month?

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.

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.

What keeps me going is goals.

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman's behind.

If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

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.

I'm more at home with my log cabins than I am in my house in Cherry Hill.

Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.

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

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.

My principles are more important than the money or my title.

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.

Cassius Clay is a name that white people gave to my slave master. Now that I am free, that I don't belong anymore to anyone, that I'm not a slave anymore, I gave back their white name, and I chose a beautiful African one.