Explore the wonderful quotes under this tag
MY greatest regret in life is that I never became the heavyweight boxing champion ofthe world.
Oct 2, 2025
Since I was a boy of five or six, I had it in my mind I would be a world boxing champion.
I want to be remembered as a great athlete. As a boxing champion.
When I fight someone, I want to break his will. I want to take his manhood. I want to rip out his heart and show it to him.
I'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.
Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life.
It isn't the mountains that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.
Boxing has become America's tragic theater.
Attack is only one half of the art of boxing.
I consider myself blessed. I consider you blessed. We've all been blessed with God-given talents. Mine just happens to be beating people up.
A champion shows who he is by what he does when he's tested. When a person gets up and says 'I can still do it', he's a champion.
Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.
There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.
The third man in the ring makes boxing possible.
It's less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment.
A champion shows who he is by what he does.
As much as I love boxing, I hate it. And as much as I hate it, I love it.
There are a lot of things and in order to be at the top and maintain your focus you have to have something that motivates you. For me, it was what I perceived as a lack of respect from the boxing world as well as the media, which made me want to work so hard and be great.
People don't realise what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.
All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him.
Boxing is the ultimate challenge. There's nothing that can compare to testing yourself the way you do every time you step in the ring.
I've seen George Foreman shadow boxing and the shadow won.
Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.
Champions have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.
I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.
Sure the fight was fixed. I fixed it with a right hand.
Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
I think it's doing a good job at the things that Premier Boxing Champions was setting out for. I think it is still heading in the right direction, I don't think it's over. It is definitely bringing more boxing fans and an audience from people that normally wouldn't be watching boxing. I think it's doing a great job and will probably do a better job in the future.
I never thought of losing, but now that it' s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.
It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.
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.
Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed.
A boxing match is like a cowboy movie. There's got to be good guys and there's got to be bad guys. And that's what people pay for - to see the bad guys get beat.
To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.
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.
I run on the road long before I dance under the lights.
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
A champion is someone who gets up when he can't.
I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.
If you screw things up in tennis, it's 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it's your ass.
Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.
I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'
Boxing brings out my aggressive instinct, not necessarily a killer instinct.
It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
The will must be stronger than the skill.
The lad who dreams of being a boxing champion or an admiral chooses reality. If the writer chooses the imaginary, he confuses the two.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.