Ali: It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali: I am tired of talking.
Muhammad Ali: Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name — it means beloved of God — and I insist people use it when speaking to me and of me.
Muhammad Ali: 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: To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you're not, pretend you are.
Muhammad Ali: Got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger.
Muhammad Ali: Ain't no reason for me to kill nobody in the ring, unless they deserve it.
Muhammad Ali: 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’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. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
Muhammad Ali: Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.
Muhammad Ali: I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.
Muhammad Ali: I never said I was the smartest, I said I was the greatest.
Muhammad Ali: He's too ugly to be the champ!
Muhammad Ali: I'm not the greatest, I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round.
Muhammad Ali wrote the foreword for the book Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul.
Muhammad Ali suffers from Parkinson's Syndrome which was brought on by the numerous blows to the side and back of the head and neck during his boxing career.
Muhammad Ali is the father of female professional boxer
Muhammad Ali won his first professional fight against Tunney Hunsaker on October 29, 1960.
Muhammad Ali learned early from the outrageous bad-guy wrestler, Gorgeous George, that it could pay to be hated. Ali said "I saw fifteen thousand people coming to see this man get beat, and his talking did it. I said, this is a gooood idea!" Then Ali refined that talking concept to what has been referred to as The Louisville Lip.
Muhammad Ali, when he stopped Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight Title, Liston had not lost a fight in over 10 years.
Muhammad Ali was convicted in June, 1967, of violating the Selective Service Act (knowingly and willfully refusing to report for and submit to induction into the armed forces), and was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $100,000. On appeal, Ali claimed he was denied due process because the ratio of blacks on draft boards did not reflect their ratio in the population. But, the three member Presidential Draft Board, formed by President Lyndon Johnson to prevent such scenarios (and included a black member) ruled his objection was invalid, and that he was not entitled to conscientious objector status as a minister of the Islamic Religion (what he stated as his profession). Moreover, in an April, 1966 letter to his local draft board, Ali protested that two years of military service would cause him serious financial loss in being unable to pursue his livelihood as a boxer, NOT as a minister.
Muhammad Ali's record is: 56 WINS 5 LOSES 0 DRAWS 37 KO's.
In 1954 in Louisville, Kentucky, 12-year-old Cassius Marcellus Clay’s bike was stolen while he and a friend were at the Columbia Auditorium. Young Cassius found a cop in a gym, Joe Martin, and boiling with youthful rage, told Martin he was going to "whup" whoever stole his bike. Martin admonished, "You better learn to box first." Within weeks, 89-pound Cassius had his first bout - his first win. Muhammad Ali said this was the reason he started boxing and that if his bike was never stolen, he may never of been where he was now.
Muhammad Ali is a vegetarian.
Muhammad Ali's trademark phrase: "Float Like A Butterfly, Sting Like A Bee".
You can share a link to this page with your friend!