They say actually every time I enter the ring, in a way, I`m going to the war. They say to me daily, you are a prized fighter, what`s the difference? And I like to say to those critics of the press and the others that there is one hell of a lot of difference in fighting in a ring and going to war in Vietnam.

A lot of wars are fought between black and whites daily in America.But if it's something I want to be with, the people who started it were black, I wouldn't not get in it.

The same people that are with me for not going to Vietnam because I saved them and their children.The same people will give me hell if I turn to them and say, 'let's free my people now'.They're with me on one part of my beliefs about the war, that's all. Not for my freedom.

The one thing I don't understand is war

Will be a divine fight, a holy war...Armageddon on a miniature scale.

Who is the descendant of the slavemasters a descendant of slaves to fight other people in thier own country?

If America were in a just war I'd volunteer for the front line. I'd do the shuffling and win the war.

War on nations changes maps. War on poverty maps change.

There is one hell of a difference between fighting in the ring and going to war in Vietnam.

I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick.

The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, obey thyself.

When you strike at a king, you must kill him.

When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your’re the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.

In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.

The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.

We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact.

The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Happy is the house that shelters a friend.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets another.

The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love.

Can another be so blessed, and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune.

Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort.

Always scorn appearances, and you always may.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is, “Let there be truth between us two forever more”.

Friends seem to be only mirrors to draw out and explain to us ourselves; and that which draws us nearer our fellow man, is, that the deep Heart in one, answers the deep Heart in another, — that we find we have (a common Nature) — one life which runs through all individuals, and which is indeed Divine.

The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.

Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, forthwith, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words.

I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” 

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” 

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” 

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” 

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” 

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” 

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.” 

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” 

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” 

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”