When I heard the truth about my name was not Cassius Clay, like I knew a black man in America named John Hawkins. Now, you know who John Hawkins was.He was a slave trader from England. But the white people of that time, if one had five slaves and his name was Jones, they would be called Jones' property. [...] Now that I'm free, now that I'm no longer a slave, then I want a name of my ancestors.
I don't smoke but I keep a match box in my pocket, when my heart slips towards sin, I burn the matchstick and heat my palm with it, then say to myself, "Ali you can't even bear this heat, how would you bear the unbearable heat of hellfire?"
Frazier soaked it all up like a sponge. When they arrived in Manila it was the same story. Ali poured scorn on his opponent. Humiliated him. Joe had the heart of a lion but verbally he was out of his depth when Ali got going. One time, as fight day approached, Ali spotted Frazier on a hotel balcony, grabbed a security guard's gun and fired some rounds at him. Everybody knew it wasn't live ammo but it still startled the hell out of Joe.] Go back in your hole, Gorilla, You gonna scare the people! Come out again and I'm gonna kill ya before time!”
I'm a Muslim. I've been a Muslim for 20 years. . . . You know me. I'm a boxer. I've been called the greatest. People recognize me for being a boxer and a man of truth. I wouldn't be here representing Islam if it were terrorist. . . . I think all people should know the truth, come to recognize the truth. Islam is peace.
Sometimes I feel a lot of things but I keep it in. I'm sure we all have this built-in radar of what we predict and when it happens, we feel 'I knew it'.
Stay in college, get the knowledge. And stay there until you're through. If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you. Advice to a young person to continue his education.
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.
I have to be real cool and not savage and radical, because it makes me angry when I think about it when I see the white boys, who are really the number one citizens, the future rulers.
Most people don't pray until they're in trouble.
When people need help they pray a lot.
But after they get what they want, they slow down.
If a man takes five showers a day, his body will be clean.
Praying five times a day helps me clean my mind.
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
I have more fans and more followers and more supporters. Because the people who actually saw the Joe Frazier Muhammad Ali fight, they saw me win at least nine rounds - the people who know boxing.
The Prophet introduced a system of prayer in that it was interwoven into man's daily work: a prayer in the morning when he arose from his bed; a prayer at lunch time, as an indication that if his body needed a diet, so did his spirit; a prayer in the afternoon when he retired from his daily work; a prayer at sunset and a prayer when going to bed.