1. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee - his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see.
2. He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
3. The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
4. Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
5. I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.
6. 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.
7. The man who has no imagination has no wings.
8. It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.
9. Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.
10. It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
11. I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'
12. It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
13. 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.
14. Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.
15. If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.
16. I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.
17. Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.
18. It's not bragging if you can back it up.
19. Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.
20. Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision.
21. It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.
22. Another quote I loved was when he predicted his fight against Joe Frazier in Manilla. He said "It will be a killer and a chiller and a thriller, when I get the gorilla in Manilla"
23. He even penned a poem before taking on Sonny Liston in 1964: ...now Clay swings with a right, what a beautiful swing And raises the bear straight out of the ring; Liston is rising and the ref wears a frown For he can’t start counting ‘til Liston comes down; Now Liston disappears from view, the crowd is getting frantic But our radar stations have picked him up somewhere over the Atlantic; Who would have thought when they came to the fight That they’d witness the launching of a human satellite?Yes the crowd did not dream when they laid down their money That they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny.”
25. On boxing: I’m not the greatest. I’m the double greatest. Not only do I knock ‘em out, I pick the round. I’m the boldest, the prettiest, the most superior, most scientific, most skillfullest fighter in the ring
26. A 1967 quote reproduced in Hunter S Thompson’s 1978 Rolling Stone feature: When I’m gone, boxing will be nothing again. The fans with the cigars and the hats turned down’ll be there, but no more housewives and little men in the street and foreign presidents.
It’s goin’ to be back to the fighter who comes to town, smells a flower, visits a hospital, blows a horn and says he’s in shape. Old hat.
I was the onliest boxer in history people asked questions like a senator.”
27. I done something new for this fight. I wrestled with an alligator. I tussled with a whale. I handcuffed lightning, I thrown thunder in jail. Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick. I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”
28. Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision.
They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
29. I say this with all sense of modesty that the guy to beat me hasn't yet been born.
30. I will tell you the round I'll knock him out in, I would have told you the exact second too had I been able to work out the time it will take the referee to walk from one end of the ring to the other.
31. After being convicted for draft-dodging in 1970 he said: I am America. I am the part you won’t recognise. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky, my name not yours. My religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”
32. 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.”
33. Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn’t choose it and I don’t want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name – it means beloved of God, and I insist people use it when people speak to me and of me.”
34. When the famous boxing commentator Howard Cosell said to Ali he should quit boxing because he is not the same person in the ring, Ali retorted " Well I spoke to your wife last night and she said you aren't the same person in bed either".
35. Live every day like it’s your last, because someday you’re going to be right.” Which one is yo[truncated by WhatsApp]
