Muhammad Ali as he knocks out his opponent: “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”

Source: BBC

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The politics

“Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.”

“Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn’t choose it, and I didn’t want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name, and I insist people use it when speaking to me and of me.”

“Nobody has to tell me that this is a serious business. I’m not fighting one man. I’m fighting a lot of men, showing a lot of ’em, here is one man they couldn’t defeat, couldn’t conquer. My mission is to bring freedom to 30m black people.”Before Ali’s fight against Jerry Quarry in 1970.

I ‘m gonna fight for the prestige, not for me, but to uplift my little brothers who are sleeping on concrete floors today in America

“I am America. I am the part you won’t recognise, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky. My name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me.”

“We were brought here 400 years ago for a job. Why don’t we get out and build our own nation and quit begging for jobs? We’ll never be free until we own our own land. We’re 40m people and we don’t have two acres that’s truly ours.”

“I’m gonna fight for the prestige, not for me, but to uplift my little brothers who are sleeping on concrete floors today in America. Black people who are living on welfare, black people who can’t eat, black people who don’t know no knowledge of themselves, black people who don’t have no future.”

“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.”

“What’s really hurting me – the name Islam is involved, and Muslim is involved and causing trouble and starting hate and violence. Islam is not a killer religion, Islam means peace. I couldn’t just sit home and watch people label Muslims as the reason for this problem.” In the aftermath of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

On refusing to serve in the United States Army:

“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?”

“Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.”

“I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.”

The character

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, his hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see.”

“I am the greatest!”

“I’m not the greatest, I’m the double greatest. Not only do I knock ’em out, I pick the round. I’m the boldest, the prettiest, the most superior, most scientific, most skilfullest fighter in the ring today.”

“People don’t realise what they had until 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.”

“I don’t want to fight to be an old man… I’m gonna only fight five or six years, make me two or three million dollars and quit fighting.”

“It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.”

“The fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain’t ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principal’s make a month? I said I was ‘The Greatest’, I never said I was the smartest!”

“At home I am a nice guy – but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.”

“When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.”

“A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

“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.”

“If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologise.”

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