The Words of Muhammad Ali

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see. Now you see me, now you don't. George thinks he will, but I know he won't.”

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

"Don’t count the days; make the days count."

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

“If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.”

“Braggin' is when a person says something and can’t do it. I do what I say.”

"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."

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

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

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

"A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

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

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'”

"A man who has no imagination has no wings."

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

"Hating people because of their colour is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong."

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

“Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you're going to be right.”

“How tall are you? So I can know in advance how far to step back when you fall down!”

“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.”

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

“It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.”

“Friendship … is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”

“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.”

“I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.”

“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 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.”

“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it—then I can achieve it.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”

“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.”

“Nobody has to tell me that this is a serious business. I'm not fighting one man. I'm fighting a lot of men, showing a lot of 'em, here is one man they couldn't defeat, couldn't conquer. My mission is to bring freedom to 30 million black people.”

“Old age is just a record of one's whole life.”

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

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

“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.”

"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."

"I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger."

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?"

"It will be a killer, and a chiller, and a thriller, when I get the gorilla in Manila." Ali, before the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ against Joe Frazier.

"Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head."

"I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn't have said. Called him names I shouldn't have called him. I apologise for that. I'm sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight."

"What's really hurting me - the name Islam is involved, and Muslim is involved and causing trouble and starting hate and violence. Islam is not a killer religion, Islam means peace. I couldn't just sit home and watch people label Muslims as the reason for this problem." (the World Trade Centre attack)

"Life is short; we get old so fast. It doesn’t make sense to waste time on hating."