“I think sleeping was my problem in school. If school had started at 4:00 in the afternoon, I’d be a college graduate today.”

The Internal Revenue Service is the real undefeated heavyweight champion.

Choose wise and Godly people to advise you.

That’s my gift. I let that negativity roll off me like water off a duck’s back. If it’s not positive, I didn’t hear it. If you can overcome that, fights are easy.

If you can maintain that integrity in whatever you do, you can’t go wrong.

I didn’t come back for the money. I just got sick of beating people up for free.

You live and learn. Then you die and forget it all.

When I was a kid in Houston, we were so poor we couldn’t afford the last 2 letters, so we called ourselves po’.

In boxing, I had a lot of fear. Fear was good. But, for the first time, in the bout with Muhammad Ali, I didn’t have any fear. I thought, “This is easy. This is what I’ve been waiting for”. No fear at all. No nervousness. And I lost.

If you want it, leave your excuses behind and come and get it.

It embarrasses me to think of all those years I was buying silk suits and alligator shoes that were hurting my feet; cars that I just parked, and the dust would just build up on them.

Many people fail not so much because of their mistakes; they fail because they are afraid to try.

I know from experience that you should never give up on yourself or others, no matter what.

They say I don’t fight guys unless they’re on a respirator. That’s incorrect. They have to be at least 3 days off a respirator.

I’m working for the Lord, and even though the Lord’s pay isn’t very high, his retirement program is.

There ain’t nothing like being in the corner, and the trainer is whispering in your ear and another guy is putting in your mouthpiece. Five seconds to go, the boom! The bell. It’s more exciting than looking down a cliff.

To be successful in life, you must get in the habit of turning negatives into positives.

At Grinnell College, for the first time in my life, I was in an all-white setting. It was a shocking experience.

For me, revolution is around young people with no skills, college education, and coming from everywhere having an economic impact on an entire system which no one notices.

Take a better stand. Put money in my mom’s hand. Get my daughter this college plan, so she don’t need no man.

My dad had been shortstop when he was in college, and you know, when you’re a kid, you want to be just like your dad.

When I do stand-up shows at colleges, girls will talk to me after the show, and that always feels good. I like talking to them.

Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this.

College students today are drowning in debt, and it is hurting them and hurting our economy. We must find a way to help families pay for college without condemning them to a lifetime of indebtedness.

You can lead a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.