The 20 Best Muhammad Ali Quotes of All Time

“Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you’re going to be right.”

Muhammad Ali was many things: a champion, an activist, a humanitarian, a celebrity, a poet, an actor, a proto-rapper, a global icon. But most of all, he was a talker. 

Here are 20 of most memorable quotes ever uttered by “the Louisville Lip”.

1. “I’ve wrestled with alligators. I’ve tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning. And throw thunder in jail.”

2. “If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize.”

3. “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.”

4. “I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.”

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

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

7. “Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you’re going to be right.”

8. “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”

9. “I’m not the greatest, I’m the double greatest.”

10. “I should be a postage stamp. That’s the only way I’ll ever get licked.”

11. “A man who has no imagination has no wings.”

12. “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.”

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

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

15. “If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.”

16. “I’m a poet, I’m a prophet, I’m the resurrector, I’m the savior of the boxing world. If it wasn’t for me, the game would be dead.”

17. “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”

18. “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.”

19. “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.”

20. “I don’t like fighters who talk too much.”