Read more Muhammad Ali features and take a Muhammad Ali poll.
"I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn't have said. Called him names I shouldn't have called him. I apologise for that. I'm sorry. It was all meant to promote the fight."
Muhammed Ali, after failing an Army intelligence test, "I said I was the greatest, not the smartest."
"I have the world heavyweight title not because it was 'given' to me, not because of my race or religion, but because I won it in the ring through my own boxing ability."
"Howard Cosell was gonna be a boxer when he was a kid only they couldn't find a mouthpiece big enough."
"At home I am a nice guy but I don't want the world to know. Humble people, I've found, don't get very far."
"I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free."
"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses -- behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road -- long before I dance under those lights." --- "He was like God - God with a custard pie up his sleeve.''
"I'm the best. I just haven't played yet."
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth"
"I'm gonna have to be killed before I lose, and I ain't going to die easy."
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer."
"I don't always know what I'm talking about, but I know I'm right."
"I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots.
I'm in a world of my own."
"When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace."
