Social Activist Quotes

“Friendship is not something you can learn in college or some learning institution, no one knows how to become friends you just become but if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship you haven't learned anything”

“My toughest fight was with my first wife.”

“That computer was made in Alabama”

“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 never thought of losing, but now that it' s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.”

“Black people ALL are fightin' you all for freedom, justice and equality. One believes that intermarriage is gonna solve it, and 200 years from now we all will be a beautiful cream color. He really believes it. One believe that gittin' some rifles and shootin' up the country is gonna solve it, another believes that education. One day we'll be the president. One believe that we gotta git into the white man's pockets and get all the money.”

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

“The only limitations one has, are the ones they place on themselves”

“I have the world heavyweight title not because it was 'given' to me, not because of my race or religion, but because I won it in the ring through my own boxing ability.”

“What keeps me going is goals.”

“He's too ugly to be the champ!”

“Allah is the Greatest. I'm just the greatest boxer.”

“I love boxing and it did a lot for me. But sometimes it made me think how savage human beings could be to each other. That wasn't the kind of boxer I wanted to be. My strategy was to be as scientific as I could when I fought. I didn't want to be seriously hurt, and I didn't want to do that to anybody else either.”

“Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.”

“You dont lose if you get knocked down; you lose if you stay down.”

“There's nothing wrong with getting knocked down, as long as you get right back up.”

“Success is not achieved by winning all the time. Real success comes when we rise after we fall. Some mountains are higher than others. Some roads steeper than the next. There are hardships and setbacks but you cannot let them stop you. Even on the steepest road you must not turn back.”

“Brooding over blunders is the biggest blunder.”

“I did not disregard my culture, if I did, it was the white American culture, and I accepted my true culture, when I accepted Mohammed Ali, because this is a black name, Islam is the black man's religion, and so I would like to say, that I would like to clarify that point that I reclaimed my real culture, and that's being a black man and wearing a black name with a black body, and not a white name, so I would never say that I didn't disown my culture.”

“The word had spread and people were piling around us. But then very suddenly, Sonny Liston froze me with that look of his. He said real quiet, 'Let's go on over here.' And he led the way to a table and the people hung back. I ain't going to lie. This was the only time since I have known Sonny Liston that he really scared me.”

“I had my style of moving and dancing and whatever I do. What you have to do, is take all the fighters you want and me and rank me where you want. I can't tell you.”

“I called my training camp Fighter's Heaven”

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

“All of us are so mixed. My great-grandfather was white.”

“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.”