Muhammad Ali Quotes
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I'm sad because I want to bow out of my race and leave my beautiful identity? Chinese love Chinese. They love their little slant eyed, pale brown skinned babies. Pakistanis love their culture.Jewish people love their culture. A lot of Catholics want to marry Catholics because the want their religion to stay the same.
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You can do what you want. But it's nature to be with your own. I want to be with my own.
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This boldness in telling the truth overshadows sport greatly. You couldn't get Joe Frazier or no boxer on this show and get interest in a subject like this. He couldn't talk about it.
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You can be free. You can be black. Look at me! I'm the Heavyweight Champion! Can't nobody stop me.
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It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.
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Money and riches don't mean nothing to me. I don't care nothing about being no rich individual. I'm not living for glory or for fame; all this is doomed for destruction. You got it today, tomorrow it's gone. I got bigger things on my mind than that. I got Islam on my mind.
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I was lucky, from the age of 12 I had boxing talent and was good for my age.
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If you wonder what the difference between them and me is, I'll break the news: you never heard of them. Most of them ... can fight almost as good as I can. I'm just saying you never heard of them.
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When one man of popularity can let the world know the problem, he might lose a few dollars himself. He might lose his life. But he's helping millions.
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I say get an education. Become an electrician, a mechanic, a doctor, a lawyer, anything but a fighter. In this trade, it's the managers that make the money and last the longest.
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I need to get everything straight. I'm not involved in a power struggle between black and white.
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I don't have to be what you want me to be.
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I used to ask my brother Rudy to throw rocks at me. I'd dodge every one. That's how I learned how to bob and weave: ducking rocks.
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"I'm the greatest thing that ever lived! I'm the king of the world! I'm a bad man. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived. I shook up the world! I want justice..."
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When I heard the truth about my name was not Cassius Clay, like I knew a black man in America named John Hawkins. Now, you know who John Hawkins was.He was a slave trader from England. But the white people of that time, if one had five slaves and his name was Jones, they would be called Jones' property. [...] Now that I'm free, now that I'm no longer a slave, then I want a name of my ancestors.
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I run on the road long before I dance under the lights.
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I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.
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Women are not equal with men, that's sure. When the woman is in danger she always looks to the man for help. We are superior by nature. The black or white woman needn't worry in life because the world is ruled by the white man.
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To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.
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The one without dreams is the one without wings.
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I had something to do, which most kids really need. Something they can look forward to - a goal, a purpose to work towards. Something to achieve. Keeps them out of trouble.
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When I was a kid I got mad enough to want to kill somebody but as you travel the world and I'm struggling with a freedom fight against nations, you can't get enough hate in you to be mad at one man just because it's a boxing match. Never. Even Floyd Paterson, who condemned my Islamic religion and didn't want to call me Muhammad Ali and said I should've gone to the army and I should be in jail.
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It's the lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself. He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.
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There comes a time in every person's life when he has to choose the course his life will take.