Muhammad Ali – Favorite Quotes

Was a boxing fan in the era of Ali….and then not any more.  I suspect I was an Ali fan a lot more than a boxing fan.  Ali had a way with words as much as he did in the ring.   Some of my favorite quotes, they seem to apply to life and business as much as boxing:

  1. “Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. You can’t hit what your eyes don’t see.”
  2. “Impossible is just a 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 potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
  3. “The fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”
  4. “I don’t count the sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count. That’s what makes you a champion.”
  5. “Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.”
  6. “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
  7. “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it—then I can achieve it.”
  8. “It isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you down. It’s the pebble in your shoe.”
  9. “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.”
  10. “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I was really the greatest.”
  11. “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.”
  12. “A man who has no imagination has no wings.”

RIP Champ.