Did you ever wonder what led Muhammad Ali to become the greatest boxer of all time? If you want to learn more about the unbreakable mindset of the boxing champion, then the following selection of the most legendary Muhammad Ali quotes is something for you. Enjoy reading! And for even more, be sure to also have a look at our list of inspirational sports quotes.
Universally regarded as the greatest boxer of the 20th century, Muhammad Ali was not only an exceptional champion but also an intelligent, well-spoken individual. The Olympic gold medalist and world heavyweight boxing champion was known for floating around the boxing ring like a butterfly that could sting like a bee.
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
Muhammad Ali
Ali became famous because of this strength, perseverance, and his painful precision striking in the boxing ring. His extraordinarily successful career as a professional boxer made him into a legend. His character and his strong convictions, however, turned him into a role model.
These inspirational Muhammad Ali quotes will motivate you to fight for your dreams
Muhammad Ali was known for his outspokenness and for bravely voicing his opinions that were often contradictory to the prevailing status quo. His refusal to serve in the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War caused public controversies and led the U.S. Department of Justice to pursue a legal case against him.
When reading through the following collection of Muhammad Ali quotes, you will notice how brilliantly insightful the thoughts of this boxer were. Ali had a sharp perception and was able to eloquently articulate his thoughts.
120 Hard-Hitting and Legendary Muhammad Ali Quotes
Whenever you feel like your inner fire is starting to go out, it’s time to refuel. Reading the thoughts of Muhammad Ali is a great way to quickly energize and to motivate yourself.
Many of the following Muhammad Ali quotes are brimming with valuable insights about life and what it means to be a champion. These are the quotes that will encourage you to go out there and fight for your dreams.
Here’s our selection of the most legendary Muhammad Ali quotes
1.
“Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
Muhammad Ali
2.
“No one starts out on top. You have to work your way up.”
Muhammad Ali
3.
“If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.”
Muhammad Ali
4.
“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it – then I can achieve it.”
Muhammad Ali
5.
“I am the greatest.”
Muhammad Ali
6.
“Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong.”
Muhammad Ali
7.
“There are hardships and setbacks, but you can’t let them stop you.”
Muhammad Ali
8.
“Think well of all, be patient with all, and try to find the good in all.”
Muhammad Ali
9.
“We spend more time learning how to make a living than we do learning to make a life.”
Muhammad Ali
10.
“I’ve never let anyone talk me into not believing in myself.”
Muhammad Ali
11.
“The critics only made me work harder.”
Muhammad Ali
12.
“We can’t be brave without fear.”
Muhammad Ali
13.
“You don’t have to be in a boxing ring to be a great fighter. As long as you are true to yourself, you will succeed in your fight for that in which you believe.”
Muhammad Ali
14.
“When you win so long, so much, you forget, you think your name will win. You forget the sacrifices, the work that goes into winning.”
Muhammad Ali
15.
“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.”
Muhammad Ali
Do you want more Muhammad Ali quotes? Read on…
16.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’.”
Muhammad Ali
17.
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
Muhammad Ali
18.
“In order to reach the top of the mountain, you have to climb every rock.”
Muhammad Ali
19.
“I don’t count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.”
Muhammad Ali
20.
“As for me, I know no fighter can survive if he feels sorry for himself when he’s defeated. When I accept a fight, I accept the consequences. I do everything to make the fight come out my way, but if I’m defeated I have to get up and come back again, no matter how humiliating the loss.”
Muhammad Ali
21.
“I’d started believing I couldn’t be whipped, that I didn’t have to work hard, train hard, discipline myself, dedicate myself in order to win. Now I know that too many easy victories can ruin a fighter just as much as a long line of defeats.”
Muhammad Ali
22.
“Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
Muhammad Ali
23.
“One person with knowledge of his life’s purpose is more powerful than ten thousand working without that knowledge.”
Muhammad Ali
24.
“I had always come home like the victorious hunter bringing back big game from the jungle: two Golden Gloves Championships, some AAU titles, an Olympic Gold Medal, the World Heavyweight Title. Even exiled and barred from boxing, I came back as The Undefeated.”
Muhammad Ali
25.
“Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”
Muhammad Ali
26.
“I’m used to having half the audience come to see me get beat, regardless of who my opponent is. I’ve denied them this day for a long time, and now that it’s here, they’re making the most of it. „
Muhammad Ali
27.
“Truly great people in history never wanted to be great for themselves. All they wanted was the chance to do good for others and be close to God.”
Muhammad Ali
28.
“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 the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
Muhammad Ali
29.
“When a fighter is beaten, everybody who believes in him is beaten too—his family, his friends, his children, the people who cheer him on, who give him their love, their hope, their pride.”
Muhammad Ali
30.
“I’m a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I’m no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won’t hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat.”
Muhammad Ali
These Muhammad Ali Quotes are incredibly powerful
31.
“I’ve been chastised. I didn’t train right. I didn’t rest; I played all night. Fighting is a serious, dangerous business, and I took it lightly.”
Muhammad Ali
32.
“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
33.
“Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the little pebble in your shoe.”
Muhammad Ali
34.
“The greatest victory in life is to rise above the material things that we once valued most.”
Muhammad Ali
35.
“All the publicity about my boxing origin and the early development of my boxing skill describes Joe Martin as the incubator. But my style, my stamina, my system were molded down in the basement of a church in East End.”
Muhammad Ali
36.
“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.”
Muhammad Ali
37.
“I won’t stop. There are thirteen more rounds to go, and I can win.”
Muhammad Ali
38.
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
Muhammad Ali
39.
“There was seldom enough money for Rudy and me to have bus fare for school, not both of us at the same time. This is the real reason why I began to race the bus to school. But since my ambition was to be the World Heavyweight Champion, I could say I wasn’t racing the bus because I didn’t have any money, I was running to get in fight condition.”
Muhammad Ali
40.
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
Muhammad Ali
41.
“I love children. I can never pass them by without saying something to them. They make you want to start life all over again.”
Muhammad Ali
42.
“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”
Muhammad Ali
43.
“My wealth is in my knowledge of self, love, and spirituality.”
Muhammad Ali
44.
“By then I had perfected the art of leaning back, circling, jabbing, and in a few minutes I was pouring lefts into his face from every angle, while nothing he threw hit me.”
Muhammad Ali
45.
“Even when I knew people were cheating me, what was important was how I behaved because I have to answer to God. I can’t be responsible for other people’s actions: They will have to answer to God themselves”
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali quotes like this are brimming with motivation
46.
“I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.”
Muhammad Ali
47.
“I don’t trust anyone who’s nice to me but rude to the waiter. Because they would treat me the same way if I were in that position.”
Muhammad Ali
48.
“Recognize how every moment of our journey is an important part of the growth of our soul.”
Muhammad Ali
49.
“I had always been the one who picked up all the stragglers and stray followers.”
Muhammad Ali
50.
“When you want to talk about who made me, you talk to me. Who made me is ME.”
Muhammad Ali
51.
“The Service you do for others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.”
Muhammad Ali
52.
“I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent I was given. I believed in myself, and I believe in the goodness of others.”
Muhammad Ali
53.
“I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.”
Muhammad Ali
54.
“I may have been the best fighter, but I was also the poorest. […] I had never been able to afford a first-class mouthpiece to protect my teeth. I had to wait until other fighters finished so I could borrow their headgear, or their trunks or bandages.”
Muhammad Ali
55.
“The hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.”
Muhammad Ali
56.
“It showed me that a long line of victories can destroy a fighter’s sense of what is real.”
Muhammad Ali
57.
“I could see it. I could almost feel it. When I proclaimed that I was the greatest of all time, I believed in myself, and I still do.”
Muhammad Ali
58.
“The man with no imagination has no wings.”
Muhammad Ali
59.
“I know I can beat them. […] Because they are not moving, not circling. Not moving backwards at the right time. I know I can learn to hit without getting hit.”
Muhammad Ali
60.
“Throughout my life, I never sought retribution against those who hurt me because I believe in forgiveness. I have practiced forgiving, just as I want to be forgiven. Only God knows what’s in a person’s heart, his true intentions. He sees and hears all things.”
Muhammad Ali
61.
“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.”
Muhammad Ali
62.
“And every day in the gym I practice pulling back from the punches. I jab and then lean back. I learn that you can’t dodge most punches by weaving, bobbing and ducking—not from short range.”
Muhammad Ali
63.
“If you even dream of beating me, you’d better wake up and apologize.”
Muhammad Ali
64.
“Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.”
Muhammad Ali
65.
“I’ll beat him so bad he’ll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.”
Muhammad Ali
Here are even more Muhammad Ali quotes for you
66.
“That year Fred Stoner’s boys went to Chicago and brought back most of the amateur titles. They were beautiful fighters. Boxers. They had sharp hooks and they danced. They could jab, hit, move. They had pretty footwork. They could duck and weave. Some were even younger than I was, but their bodies looked mature. How did they get their bodies that way? I had to find out.”
Muhammad Ali
67.
“There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people”
Muhammed Ali
68.
“I was in better condition than most athletes, but I could only go on with the grind of getting up at five every morning […] by holding my dream of becoming the World Heavyweight Champion in front of me.”
Muhammad Ali
69.
“Wisdom is knowing when you can’t be wise.”
Muhammad Ali
70.
“When we devote all of our actions to a spiritual goal, everything that we do becomes a prayer.”
Muhammad Ali
71.
“If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, then they can sure make something out of you.”
Muhammad Ali
72.
“Now I’m down, way down. They say I’m finished. They’re celebrating. But I’ll come back. I can win my title back.”
Muhammad Ali
73.
“What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.”
Muhammad Ali
74.
“When it comes to love, compassion, and other feelings of the heart, I am rich.”
Muhammad Ali
75.
“I loved the smell of horses and hay and the sight of their beautiful bodies. Somehow it inspired me to train harder so my body could be in condition like that.”
Muhammad Ali
76.
“What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.”
Muhammad Ali
77.
“I ain’t been beaten. […] This is the best thing that could happen to me.”
Muhammad Ali
78.
“A universe of doubt could never erase, The faith his heart has embraced.”
Muhammad Ali
79.
“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.”
Muhammad Ali
80.
“It was the fight that left me looking inside myself, where before I had been looking on the outside, talking outside, thinking outside. I had not regarded the loss to Frazier as a defeat.”
Muhammad Ali
81.
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”
Muhammad Ali
82.
“I have never heard anything that affected me like those words: ‘Heavyweight Champion of the World.’ All the world? And from that day on I want to hear that said about me.”
Muhammad Ali
83.
“What keeps me going are goals.”
Muhammad Ali
84.
“Each time I thought I had achieved my life’s purpose, I discovered it was only another step in my journey.”
Muhammad Ali
85.
“You lose nothing when fighting for a cause … In my mind, the losers are those who don’t have a cause they care about.”
Muhammad Ali
These Muhammad Ali Quotes are incredibly insightful
86.
“It’s funny, but those who hate me most sometimes inspire me the most. As long as I know they’re out there.”
Muhammad Ali
87.
“It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.”
Muhammad Ali
88.
“There is a science to making your opponent wear down.”
Muhammad Ali
89.
“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”
Muhammad Ali
90.
“I remember that the butterfly has got to get back its wings and the bee has to get back its sting.”
Muhammad Ali
91.
“It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.”
Muhammad Ali
92.
“Thrilled at the idea of being seen on TV all over Kentucky, I trained the whole week.”
Muhammad Ali
93.
“Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.”
Muhammad Ali
94.
“I believed that I would continue to do better, I knew that if I was ever to maintain my position in the field of boxing, every thought, every move would have to be concentrated on training and developing my craft.”
Muhammad Ali
95.
“I’m the greatest, I’m a bad man, and I’m pretty!”
Muhammad Ali
96.
“I never wanted to lose, never thought I would, but the thing that matters is how you lose. I’m not crying. My friends should not cry.”
Muhammad Ali
97.
“It takes pride and a tiger’s drive to build up the confidence, the ego, the power to defeat an opponent in the ring.”
Muhammad Ali
98.
“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.”
Muhammad Ali
99.
“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
100.
“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. „
Muhammad Ali
101.
“I learn to put my head within hitting range, force my opponent to throw blows, then lean back and away.”
Muhammad Ali
102.
“It’s not bragging if you can back it up.”
Muhammed Ali
103.
“I want to come home. To rest. […] To see where I am. To remember who I am, where I came from and where I want to go.”
Muhammad Ali
104.
“What keeps me going is goals.”
Muhammad Ali
105.
“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”
Muhammad Ali
106.
“It takes a lot out of a fighter to throw punches that land in the thin air. When his best combinations hit nothing but space, it saps him.”
Muhammad Ali
107.
“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.”
Muhammad Ali
108.
“I’m coming home after a defeat every man, woman, and child in my hometown saw or heard about, just like everybody else all over the world. The press will crowd the sports pages with headlines that remind me: MUHAMMAD IS FINISHED!”
Muhammad Ali
109.
“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”
Muhammad Ali
110.
“I’m sitting on the dressing table, looking around at the faces near me, the people slipping in and out of the room, and feeling as though I’m in a strange place. Then I understand why it’s strange—it’s not the winner’s room; it’s the loser’s room. I’ve been in one only once before. No one knows what to say in the loser’s room.”
Muhammad Ali
111.
“Don’t count the days; make the days count.”
Muhammad Ali
112.
“Others may know pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.”
Muhammad Ali
113.
“In order for a prizefighter to be successful and come out with what belongs to him, he has to be two separate people in two different places at the same time—in the gym and in the lawyer’s office, in the ring and in the accountant’s office. And since no one can be two people, a prizefighter must have a partner, a brother, a friend, a counsel, a twin in thinking and aspiration who will be the other-self he needs.”
Muhammad Ali
114.
“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.”
Muhammad Ali
115.
“Put yourself out on a limb, like me!”
Muhammad Ali
116.
“[Ali’s coach Fred] made us shoot left jabs, two hundred straight, sharp left jabs at a time without stopping. If we got tired, he made us start all over and count to a hundred, one, two, three”
Muhammad Ali
117.
“Jokes? There are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all.”
Muhammad Ali
118.
“But it was while fighting in my first Kentucky State Golden Gloves tournament that I learned more from a defeat than from all the victories I had been accumulating under Martin. In that tournament, a black fighter beat me decisively. I was hurt, but I knew I had been beaten by a better boxer.”
Muhammad Ali
119.
“Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you’re going to be right.”
Muhammad Ali
120.
“There are certain things I have done that I am not proud of, especially when they caused pain to others. I ask God for forgiveness.”
Muhammad Ali
We hope you enjoyed this collection of Muhammad Ali quotes.
What is so amazing about these inspirational quotes is that Muhammad Ali always seems to encourage you to unveil your inner champion. As a strong-willed person, he is an excellent example of what you can accomplish with the right mentality and exceptional work ethics.
What is your favorite Muhammad Ali quote?
Let us know in the comment section below. We’re excited to hear from you.
Stay victorious!
