Bernard Hopkins
There is nothing more important than staying alert, reading your opponent, that counts for both inside and outside the ring.
I think being 50 and being me is different than any other fighter in any era.
I'm special, in a way that is good. I don't have to explain 'special.' There is no definition for special. Special speaks for itself.
I am a great champion.
Money is great, but history is something that you can never get rid of and act like it didn't happen.
I have to constantly work on my reflexes and hand-eye coordination. I do a lot of puzzles. I play chess.
I have to be smarter than my opponents. I have to figure out their styles in the ring. I have to be three or four steps ahead of them. So my mind has to be sharp.
A body that doesn't move mentally or physically dies.
I avoid processed food.
If you notice, in every fight, I always have something to get into their head.
It takes no effort to be ordinary. Ordinary is not even a challenge. You can do nothing and be ordinary.Collection: Effort
I got knocked down. Anybody could be knocked down, anybody can be knocked out, but it's not what happened, but what happens next.Collection: Motivation
You’re hated by some, loved by others, but that’s what’s great about being different. If everybody loved you, that means you’re not doing the right thing most of the time.Collection: Motivation
The only way you can get experience is from the clock. Time works with some people and against some people. Fortunately, the clock has worked in my favor.Collection: Motivation
I'm not going to give up. If you pay attention to my plan and the way I live and the way I eat, then you have a chance to extend your life a few more years.Collection: Giving Up
I function better when my back is to the wall.Collection: Wall
I am an old man, I just happen to be an old man that can fight.Collection: Fighting
There's no great person that lived that didn't go through scrutiny or ridicule and prosecution in all types of ways, to be who they are in history.Collection: Motivation
You've got to be willing to look at a guy's face and say I will kill you if I have to. You've got to be willing to look in his face and say that I will stab you, I will hurt you and you can't talk the game, you've got to really act and do the game. Prison is a thing where talking gets you killed. What gets you respect is you do. The guy that you fear is a guy that says nothing.Collection: Hurt
I'm lining up my troops to go to battle with. Tarver is the man at light heavyweight. He has the credibility of the fans and media, and that's what counts. That's why I am taking this risk, but I am taking it by preparing myself with good people.Collection: Motivation
I would never let a white boy beat me. You can print that. I would never lose to a white person.Collection: Boys
There are so many things I've done that the world of boxing has witnessed. It's going to be difficult for the boxing people to pick one of my performances as the best.Collection: People
There's always a chance you will see something new in a fight. Especially in boxing.Collection: Fighting
Anybody who thinks I'm taking this fight for a paycheck doesn't know me. My whole life I've been achieving the impossible.Collection: Motivation
I like Sergio Martinez. I think he's strong, he's gritty, he's got plenty of heart, he's not the fanciest guy you might have seen in boxing but he has the goods to be around a long time in the Middleweight division.Collection: Strong
This fight isn't about boxing, it's something deeper than that.Collection: Fighting
I want to be the poster child for taking care of yourself after 40. Obesity is an epidemic in this country and I'm a living, breathing example of what it means to stay healthy.Collection: Country
When you have somebody that's smart and you're not so smart, to me that's modern day slavery because you're being dictated to.Collection: Motivation
I'm 100 percent clean. I'm doing this off of nuts and bananas.Collection: Nuts
Enjoy that you can see me now. I would love to see the great Michael Jordan and Julius Erving in their younger days, but they're gone. Look at me at 50, I'm going to eat right and live right so I can take less punches and look normal.Collection: Work Out
The only thing I can do is be right about what I say. Because I know I'm being watched. I understand what I'm facing. All I can do is put the work behind it.Collection: Work Out
The media here know that there's the possibility that I can pull this off. I'm confident. Confidence comes with work. When you prepare yourself and you know you're going into combat with all of your bullets, you have the confidence to go into battle.Collection: Media
I must destroy everybody that comes in front of me. I must execute them and I must do it in grand style. I must slay Robert Allen like I must slay De La Hoya or anybody else that steps in that ring.Collection: Motivation
I always not only want push the envelope in my career but I also have an itch for going against the grain.Collection: Careers
The controversy was that Chad Dawson thought he was in an MMA fight and not a boxing match.Collection: Motivation
You're not going to see a new Bernard Hopkins. I'm too old for that crap. I think what you will see is something different that I know I am capable of doing.Collection: Thinking
The powers that be don’t want athletes or boxers to become as smart as they are.Collection: Motivation
I really didn't care. I'd do something to somebody and walk in front of them the next day like it never happened. I had very very low value on my own life.Collection: Motivation
If I'm in a situation where Duane Ford is one of the judges, I have to pick it up.Collection: Motivation
I'd rather be an adviser. I don't wanna become a trainer because I think with the knowledge and the business sense that I've accomplished through my career and have credibility, why would I reduce myself down to being in a gym with a bunch of training which is not a bad thing to give advice, but I can do that with a suit and tie on and also be there when the cheques are written. I don't wanna be there when the cheques are handed down from 3 or 4 people's hands and then it hits mine as a trainer because 9/10 times, deductions have come out of that.Collection: Motivation
Smokey Wilson was like my Gandhi. If I had run into somebody else in prison, with a different set of values, the world might have never known one of the greatest boxing talents ever to come out of Philadelphia.Collection: Running
I still shop at Costco. I just started tipping two years ago.Collection: Motivation
I've got a history of frustrating guys and making them angry.Collection: Motivation
I don't know what being a 48-year-old feels like. There are a lot of 48 year olds that aren't in good shape. The pharmacy is making a killing off of them.Collection: Years
I've done so many unpredictable things and so profoundly. Even the people who want to go against me, are afraid to go against me. They've been wrong so many times. A lot of them are just being mum right now. They must feel I can still do things.Collection: Unpredictable Things
I was made to be where I'm at. I just had to go through some challenges, so that I can educate others later.Collection: Work Out
Tavoris Cloud might actually be hungrier than me. How often do you hear a fighter say that his opponent is hungrier than he is? I don't need hunger. I'm motivated by my desire to prove that I'm different and that I can still silence the critics.Collection: Clouds
I have the philosophy that I'm different. I have the body, the well-being and the experience. Now the teacher gets to show the student that he's worthy of the lesson. Let me show him through experience.Collection: Teacher
Understand that I'm at my best when it comes to proving a point, not only to show that I'm a better fighter and a better athlete at 40½ years old, but I'm at my best when I know I've got to beat the system again.Collection: Motivation