Muhammad Ali

1942–2016 · American heavyweight champion & activist

Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, on 17 January 1942, and took the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston in February 1964 at twenty-two — then changed his name. In 1967 he refused induction into the U.S. Armed Forces on religious grounds, was convicted of draft evasion, stripped of the title and barred from boxing for more than three years; he won it back from George Foreman in Kinshasa in October 1974. He was a professional talker as much as a professional fighter, and he worked at it — rhyming, boasting, and, as here, road-testing an aphorism on a reporter to see whether it landed. He died on 3 June 2016.

Traced to source

9 quotes we’ve traced to Muhammad Ali

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life”

Verified

“I am the greatest! I'm the greatest thing that ever lived”

Verified

“My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud, for big powerful America”

Verified

“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”

Verified

“I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was”

Attributed

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter”

Disputed

“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”

Disputed

“It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe”

Disputed

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth”

Disputed

Not actually Muhammad Ali

Often misattributed to Muhammad Ali

Famous lines widely pinned on Muhammad Ali that we’ve traced to someone else.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter”

actually Unknown (an anonymous quip by 1968)

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”

actually Drew “Bundini” Brown

“If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it”

actually Jesse Jackson

“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”

actually Aimee Lehto Schewe

“It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe”

actually Anonymous

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world”

actually George Bernard Shaw

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth”

Anonymous (documented by 1917); embraced by Muhammad Ali

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