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.

|
Me, we. (Supposedly the shortest quote in the English language delivered at a Harvard graduation.)

|
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 in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I

|
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

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

|
Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.

|
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.

|
It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself.

|
The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life

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

|
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

|
I've seen George Foreman shadow boxing and the shadow won

|
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.

|
We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God is all that will last.

|
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life

|
Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up

|
My toughest fight was with my first wife

|
My toughest fight was with my first wife.

|
I figure I'll be champ for about ten years and then I'll let my brother take over - like the Kennedys down in Washington.

|
It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.

|
The fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road; long before I dance under those lights

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

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

|
I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights.

|
I don't always know what I'm talking about but I know I'm right

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

|
Where do you think I'd be next week if I didn't know how to shout and holler and make the public take notice? I'd be poor and I'd probably be down in my home town, washing windows or running an elevator and saying

|
What keeps me going is goals.

|
The man who has no imagination has no wings.

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

|