I'm just hoping that people understand that Islam is peace and not violence.

Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.

I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.

I've been everywhere in the world, seen everything, had everything a man can have.

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.

I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

I don't have to be what you want me to be.

My only fault is that I don't realize how great I really am.

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

I said I was 'The Greatest,' I never said I was the smartest!

Cassius Clay is a name that white people gave to my slave master. Now that I am free, that I don't belong anymore to anyone, that I'm not a slave anymore, I gave back their white name, and I chose a beautiful African one.

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

Anywhere I go, there is always an incredible crowd that follows me. In Rome, as I land at the airport, even the men kiss me. I love Rome.

I'm the most recognized and loved man that ever lived cuz there weren't no satellites when Jesus and Moses were around, so people far away in the villages didn't know about them.

Never put your money against Cassius Clay, for you will never have a lucky day.

My trainer don't tell me nothing between rounds. I don't allow him to. I fight the fight. All I want to know is did I win the round. It's too late for advice.

God tries you in certain, certain ways. Some people are rich, and they believe in God. They lose the money, things get hard, they get weak and quit going to church. Quit serving God like they did.

To make America the greatest is my goal, so I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole. And for the U.S.A. won the medal of gold. The Greeks said, 'You're better than the Cassius of old.'

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.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, 'The Intoxication of Life,' 'The Purpose of Life,' 'The Real Cause of Man's Distress,' 'The Journey to the Goal in Life,' and, one of my favorites, 'The Heart of Man.' They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

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.

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.

Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life.

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

I'm more at home with my log cabins than I am in my house in Cherry Hill.

Ali's got a left, Ali's got a right - when he knocks you down, you'll sleep for the night; and when you lie on the floor and the ref counts to ten, hope and pray that you never meet me again.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson's. There's no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.

No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room.

America is the greatest country in the world.

Joe Frazier got hit more than me - and he doesn't have Parkinson's.

My toughest fight was with my first wife.

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman's behind.

I'm no leader; I'm a little humble follower.

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

There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.

The only thing that matters is submitting to the will of God.

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

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.

Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man.

Never read any book that is not a year old.

Books are the best type of the influence of the past… The theory of books is noble.

Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep.