Top 60 Don King Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Hypocrisy is the mother of all evil and racial prejudice is still her favourite child.”

— Don King

2. “Only in America can you find so many angry people claiming to love their country, while hating almost anyone in it.”

— Don King

3. “You don’t get nothing from sleep but a dream.”

— Don King

4. “I never cease to amaze myself. And I say this humbly.”

— Don King

5. “Opportunity is the greatest charity.”

— Don King

6. “America is the greatest country in the world – I love America. What I’ve accomplished could not have been done anywhere else.”

— Don King

7. “If you want to sell a steak, you can’t just have the sizzle, you gotta have sauce.”

— Don King

8. “This is a setback. You get back up, you dust yourself off, and you get back in the game. We had a great singer named Ray Charles who wrote a song called ‘Drowning in My Tears.’ You can’t afford to drown in your tears. You gotta go back, rededicate yourself, redouble your efforts, and persevere.”

— Don King

9. “I’m a promoter of the people for the people and by the people and my magic lies in my people ties.”

— Don King

10. “Only in america will you see people circling the parking lot looking for a close space at a gym.”

— Don King

11. “He speaks English, Spanish, and he’s bilingual too.”

— Don King

12. “You go for the quality of the performance, not the longevity of it.”

— Don King

13. “When you can count your money, you ai’nt got none.”

— Don King

14. “You must believe the unbelievable, snatch the possible out of the impossible.”

— Don King

15. “Machiavelli taught me it was better to be feared than loved. Because if you are loved they sense you might be weak. I am a man of the people and help them but it is important to do so through strength.”

— Don King

16. “If you cast your bread upon the water and you have faith, you’ll get back cash. If you don’t have faith, you’ll get soggy bread.”

— Don King

17. “You sign an agreement; you make a contract, you live up to it. You never get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. You got a right to say yay or nay.”

— Don King

18. “Only in America could a Don King happen.”

— Don King

19. “They went down the list of every known charge conceivable to man – rackeering, skimming, kickback, ticket scalping. fixing fights, preordaining fights, vitaiting officials, corrupting judges, all the way down to laundering money. Everything but the Lindbergh baby.”

— Don King

20. “When you lose the title, that doesn’t mean you lose the contract to what you had. Just like when you win the title, it doesn’t mean you win brains, PhDs and MAs.”

— Don King

21. “I never get tired because it ain’t energy that’s being dispenced. It is GOD speaking through me.”

— Don King

22. “I dare to be great. The man without imagination stands unhurt and hath no wings. This is my credo, this is my forte.”

— Don King

23. “I wasn’t getting invited to any board meetings. I had to kick the door down.”

— Don King

24. “Don King is a damn sleezebag. King is nothing but a strong-arm man. He has taken his gangsterism and put it into boxing.”

— Don King

25. “I will fight for America till the day I drop.”

— Don King

26. “If he says he has the pizzazz and the sizzle, I have the steak, and substance. I’ve made more money than he’s made. I’ve made bigger deals than he’s made, when he’s got the complexion to get the protection.”

— Don King

27. “There’s only one rule anyone connected with boxing must keep in mind – everything you here in boxing is a lie.”

— Don King

28. “I cant believe that having said what I said was interpreted as having been what I said when I said it, because I said it where I said it, when I said it, and who I said it to.”

— Don King

29. “You see, the problem with me is I’m so good even my friends think I’m doing something wrong. Flair and flamboyance is not illegal. It may be detestable, it may be offensive, but it’s not illegal.”

— Don King

30. “You ever stop to think they can’t rob you of knowledge? They can strip you and you’ve still got it.”

— Don King

31. “You can see the clouds rolling in and thunder is imminent.”

— Don King

32. “Reality show? You can’t find anything better than boxing because of the trials and errors, the ups and downs, the struggle when you get knocked down to get back up. Use it symbolically and interchangeably for life.”

— Don King

33. “I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation.”

— Don King

34. “You can be the greatest guy in the world but if you ain’t got no heart, you ain’t gonna survive.”

— Don King

35. “If you are a blackman in America and get stopped by the police, make sure you have a vidio camera. Don’t rely on some passerby to film the beating. Rodney King was just lucky.”

— Don King

36. “His credibility is zilch, virtually nil.”

— Don King

37. “I’m an ardent American Football fan.”

— Don King

38. “I am so happy to be at Barclays Center. When I saw Brett Yormark, I thought to myself that he and his brother Michael are doing an amazing job.”

— Don King

39. “Martin Luther King took us to the mountain top: I want to take us to the bank.”

— Don King

40. “I am a product of a rat and roach infested black ghetto. It is easy for me to rationalize my dealings as a numbers man. I’ll defend men today who are involved in it.”

— Don King

41. “I’ve whipped the Harvard graduate’s ass. Nothing against Harvard – it’s a hell of a school – but there I was, twenty five yards behind, wrapped in leg irons, and I beat him.”

— Don King

42. “There’s nothing wrong with options. Options are everywhere. In movies, in sports. Options is not a dirty word. I need to pay my overheads, you know. I invest a lot of money developing a fighter and then I deserve to reap the rewards.”

— Don King

43. “You know what animals exist in the desert. He’s going to his indigenous natural habitat. What better place for night crawlers?”

— Don King

44. “People are my most important asset. Faith in the supreme being, trust, credibility and performance are the things that have brought me to the top.”

— Don King

45. “I had a moment of religious epiphanosity.”

— Don King

46. “I don’t see you making a movie about Bob Arum.”

— Don King

47. “From the very beginning I used sound business practices in everything I did. White businessman uses them to make money he’s a genius. Black businessman uses them he’s a crook. That’s the way it is.”

— Don King

48. “Mike Tyson has been given ever penny he has coming.”

— Don King

49. “Mike Tyson was one of the most terrific athletes I’ve ever met.”

— Don King

50. “Integrity, number one. Even in business that’s predicated on lies I refuse to become part of the lies that is all-consuming.”

— Don King