The world lost a cultural and religious icon as well as a three-time heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist with the passing of Muhammad Ali at 74.
Muhammad Ali is gone too soon at the age of 74. The legendary boxer and world icon died late Friday night in Arizona after he was admitted to the hospital on Thursday with a respiratory illness.
Ali battled Parkinson’s for more than 30 years since his diagnosis in 1984 and his respiratory illness that claimed his life was attributed to the disease he fought so bravely for more than three decades.
It’s impossible to measure the impact he had in the squared circle and outside. He changed the world. He was the greatest boxer of all-time and one of the most culturally significant athletes to ever live.
He fought for what he believed in and he did it with a flair and a showmanship that is unknown to mankind. He was a transformative person with the gift of gab and made trash-talking an artform.
Here is a collection of some of the best Muhammad Ali quotes of all-time. You’ll likely see many of these quotes mentioned in reference to the outpouring of tributes and memories of Ali over the coming days.
1. “Don’t count the days; make the days count.”
2. “I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Rumble young man, rumble.”
3. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
4. “If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it.”
5. “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
6. “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration, it’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
7. “I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”
8. “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.”
9. “I ain’t got no quarrel with the VietCong.”
10. “I’ve wrestled with alligators, I’ve tussled with a whale, I done handcuffed lightning and thrown thunder in jail.”
For more coverage of the passing of Muhammad Ali, you can visit our boxing hub page.