Top 350 Muhammad Ali Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “If you were surprised when Nixon resigned, just watch what happens when I whup Foreman’s behind!”

— Muhammad Ali

202. “Jokes? There are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all.”

— Muhammad Ali

203. “Elvis Presley was the sweetest, most humble and nicest man you’d want to know.”

— Muhammad Ali

204. “Eat your words! Eat your words! I am the greatest.”

— Muhammad Ali

205. “What’s my greatest weakness? Sad stories, people with problems.”

— Muhammad Ali

206. “Once we realize we are all members of humanity, we will want to compete in the spirit of love.”

— Muhammad Ali

207. “Some gems for the greatest of them all.”

— Muhammad Ali

208. “The name Muhammad is the most common name in the world. In all the countries around the world – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon – there are more Muhammads than anything else.”

— Muhammad Ali

209. “I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.”

— Muhammad Ali

210. “I should be a postage stamp, because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked. I’m beautiful. I’m fast. I’m so mean I make medicine sick. I can’t possibly be beat.”

— Muhammad Ali

211. “I do need publicity but not for what I do for good. I need publicity for my book. I need publicity for my fights. I need publicity for my movie but not for helping people. Then it is no longer sincere.”

— Muhammad Ali

212. “Death is the tax the soul has to pay for having a name and a form.”

— Muhammad Ali

213. “I used to ask my brother Rudy to throw rocks at me. I’d dodge every one. That’s how I learned how to bob and weave: ducking rocks.”

— Muhammad Ali

214. “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.”

— Muhammad Ali

215. “I’m just hoping that people understand that Islam is peace and not violence.”

— Muhammad Ali

216. “Who is the descendant of the slavemasters a descendant of slaves to fight other people in thier own country?”

— Muhammad Ali

217. “You can’t keep your mind on fighting when you’re thinking about a woman. You can’t keep your concentration. You feel like sleeping all the time.”

— Muhammad Ali

218. “People don’t realise what they had till it’s gone. Like President Kennedy – nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley – I was the Elvis of boxing.”

— Muhammad Ali

219. “If you are not the best, then pretend you are.”

— Muhammad Ali

220. “Be obedient to your superior, and your inferior will obey you.”

— Muhammad Ali

221. “I’m going to, not I’m gonna. Talk intelligent.”

— Muhammad Ali

222. “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.”

— Muhammad Ali

223. “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.”

— Muhammad Ali

224. “I can’t see what God’s plan is. I just know I’ve got to live with it.”

— Muhammad Ali

225. “You made a big mistake by letting me come, because now I’m going after your job.”

— Muhammad Ali

226. “I always liked to chase the girls. Parkinson’s stops all that. Now I might have a chance to go to heaven.”

— Muhammad Ali

227. “We are all God’s people. We are prejudiced and we separate into Jews, Mexicans, Italians, but God doesn’t see colors.”

— Muhammad Ali

228. “I try not to speak about all the charities and people I help, because I believe we can only be truly generous when we expect nothing in return.”

— Muhammad Ali

229. “The greater our level of understanding, the harder the tests become.”

— Muhammad Ali

230. “What I will remember most about Mr Mandela is that he was a man whose heart, soul and spirit could not be contained or restrained by racial and economic injustices, metal bars or the burden of hate and revenge.”

— Muhammad Ali

231. “People will know you’re serious when you produce.”

— Muhammad Ali

232. “Do not be ashamed to give a little; for to deceive is to give still less.”

— Muhammad Ali

233. “You been hearing about how bad I am since you were a little kid with mess in your pants! Tonight, I’m gonna whip you till you cry like a baby.”

— Muhammad Ali

234. “America don’t have no future! America’s going to be destroyed! Allah’s going to divinely chastise America! Violence, crimes, earthquakes- there’s gonna be all kinds of trouble. America’s going to pay for all its lynchings and killings of slaves and what it’s done to black people.”

— Muhammad Ali

235. “Sonny Liston is great. But he’ll fall in eight.”

— Muhammad Ali

236. “I can drown a drink of water. I can kill a dead tree. Don’t mess with Muhammad Ali.”

— Muhammad Ali

237. “I’m so fast I run through a hurricane and not get wet. George Foreman is gonna pay me a dept.”

— Muhammad Ali

238. “When you saw me in the boxing ring fighting, it wasn’t just so I could beat my opponent. My fighting had a purpose. I had to be successful in order to get people to listen to the things I had to say.”

— Muhammad Ali

239. “My face is so pretty, you don’t see a scar, which proves I’m the king of the ring by far.”

— Muhammad Ali

240. “Every time I look in the mirror, I see that kid from Louisville, Kentucky, staring back at me. His name was Cassius Clay.”

— Muhammad Ali

241. “Since I won’t let the critics seal my fate, they keep hollering I’m full of hate. But they don’t really hurt me none, ’cause I’m doing good and having fun.”

— Muhammad Ali

242. “I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.”

— Muhammad Ali

243. “I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.”

— Muhammad Ali

244. “I just give lip service to being the greatest. He was the greatest.”

— Muhammad Ali

245. “Someone stole my bicycle and I said I was going to learn to fight so that I could catch him and beat him up. But I never did catch him. But I ended up the champ of the whole world.”

— Muhammad Ali

246. “My main purpose is to pray five times a day. And that’s not easy.”

— Muhammad Ali

247. “I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I’m in a world of my own.”

— Muhammad Ali

248. “Catching flies is better training than hitting the speed bag.”

— Muhammad Ali

249. “Scatter abroad what you have already amassed rather than pile up new wealth.”

— Muhammad Ali

250. “They can boo me, yell at me, and throw peanuts at me, as long as they pay to get in.”

— Muhammad Ali