Muhammad Ali

“What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.”

“Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.”

“My principles are more important than the money or my title.”

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

“People don't realize what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.”

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

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

“I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“White people just don't want their slaves to be free. That's the whole thing.”

“It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”

“I shook up the world, I shook up the world.”

“I'm the greatest thing that ever lived! I'm the king of the world! I'm a bad man. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived.”

“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 don't have to be what you want me to be.”

“I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.”

“Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the U.S. Bureau of Wild Life.”

“All through my life, I have been tested. My will has been tested, my courage has been tested, my strength has been tested. Now my patience and endurance are being tested.”