When I was a boy, I used to pull a big cross saw with my dad. He'd use his right hand, so I'd have to use my left.Collection: Dad
Trust me. Sometimes God comes down and puts his hand on you if you're too big in your thoughts.Collection: Trust
This ultimate fighting stuff is something I don't agree with. Once a man is down, you have to let him have a chance to prove how good he is.Collection: Chance
Had my own car at twelve years old. Left school in the tenth grade. Married when I was sixteen. Ain't hard to figure out; I was a man at a very young age.Collection: Car
Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.Collection: Money
My mom allowed me to take an old burlap bag and fill it with moss, corn stalks and rocks, then hang it from a tree and spend an hour a day punching my heavy bag.Collection: Mom
Ali even told me in the ring, 'You can't beat me - I'm your Lord.' I just told him, 'Lord, you're in the wrong place tonight.'
There are places on a man's head that are as hard as a rock. Your head's actually stronger than your body. And you don't have too many instruments up there workin'. But you got a lot of tools workin' in that body: the liver, the kidneys, the heart, the lungs. You soften that up and see what happens. I lived by the body shot.
I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you.
Twenty years I've been fighting Ali, and I still want to take him apart piece by piece and send him back to Jesus.
My left eye went when I was young. I was working the speed bag, and some steel went in the eye and scratched it to pieces. I was kinda blind in that eye.
Joe Frazier's life didn't start with Ali. I was a Golden Gloves champ. Gold medal in Tokyo '64. Heavyweight champion of the world long before I fought Ali in the Garden.
I don't think a man has to go around shouting and play-acting to prove he is something. And a real man don't go around putting other guys down, trampling their feelings in the dirt, making out they're nothing.
I've achieved 'the American dream.' I feel it's my duty to help others achieve their vision, too - especially the youth.
I wasn't a big guy. People thought the big guys would eat me up. But it was the other way around. I loved to fight bigger guys.
I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It'll come together again when they put me down.
There are places on a man's head that are as hard as a rock. Your head's actually stronger than your body. And you don't have too many instruments up there workin'.
I grew up in Beaufort, South Carolina, in a six-room farmhouse with a couple of leaning posts to keep it from fallin'. I came up in a time when men were men.
I know my destiny. I was born into animosity, bigotry and hatred. We had water for white folks, and water for coloured folks. White lines, black lines. I came from Beaufort in South Carolina, and it was tougher than Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
My family's support and the negative environment of the day toward blacks in South Carolina became the forces that led me out of the South - first to New York, then to Philadelphia, where I found opportunity in the form of a PAL gym and my trainer, Yank Durham.
I don't mind people want to think Muhammad is the greatest fighter around. Everybody wants to make him great because of his mouth, that he was the best. He was good, but that doesn't make him great. I proved that.
Champions aren't made in the ring, they are merely recognized there. What you cheat on in the early light of morning will show up in the ring under the bright lights.Collection: Morning
You can map out a light plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you're down to the reflexes you developed in training. That's where roadwork shows - the training you did in the dark of the mornin' will show when you're under the bright lights.Collection: Spiritual
If you cheat in the dark of the morning, you'll get found in the bright lights of the night.Collection: Morning
Courage is how bad you want it.Collection: Want
Champions aren't made in the ring, they are merely recognized there.Collection: Champion
If I lose, I'll walk away and never feel bad because I did all I could. There was nothing more to do.Collection: Inspirational
There's one thing I don't ever think about: losing ... Instead, I think about how I'm going to win, and how I can do it the quickest way.Collection: Sports
I hit him with body shots that would have brought down cities.Collection: Cities
A sound body keeps a sound mind.Collection: Mind
Joe Louis is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Rocky Marciano is second only to Louis. Where do I rate Ali? Somewhere below me. I beat him, and if I could beat him, no doubt Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano could have beaten him.Collection: Champion
I loved fighting... It gave me the opportunity to prove myself, to stand up and say, 'I'm the best. I matter. I am.'Collection: Fighting