“If you don’t dream, you might as well be dead.”

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

I do believe he’s the greatest, but forget about boxing – give that to Joe Louis, or somebody – I believe he’s one of the greatest men I’ve ever met.

As bad as your situation may be, someone else always has it worse than you.

My mother was watching on television and she doesn’t want me to hurt anyone.

If you can look in your mother’s eyes and she’s proud of you, then you’re a champion.

All I’ve ever tried to tell anyone is that I’m not a black man or a white man or anything else. All I’ve ever been was an American.

A boxer never sees the big one that hits him.

Anybody going into boxing already has brain damage.

People are hurt in love affairs and never recover, more than a boxing match.

We, too, need to be patient, especially when it comes to reaching new goals.

I am a winner each and every time I go into the ring.

Today the biggest decisions I make aren’t related to the heavyweight title. They are whether I visit McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, or Jack-in-the-Box.

I respect that you want to protect your niece. You know, I didn’t want my daughter to become a boxer. Neither did Mohammad. But Joe Frazier, on the other hand, he had his baby girl boxing in the crib.

I think its so good for boxing when a new guy or new blood as we call it, makes a big statement.

Heroes have a rough time because they stand up when they ought not to, they speak when they ought not to; they always have to go that extra mile.

Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a ‘Negro’ fraction.

Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest – then we can all die laughing.

See, my children, a person who is in a state of sin is always sad. Whatever he does, he is weary and disgusted with every thing; while he who is at peace with God is always happy, always joyous. . . Oh, beautiful life! Oh, beautiful death!

There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.

A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.