My trainer don’t tell me nothing between rounds. I don’t allow him to. I fight the fight. All I want to know is did I win the round. It’s too late for advice.

It kills me to lose. If I’m a troublemaker, and I don’t think that my temper makes me one, then it’s because I can’t stand losing. That’s the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first.

So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you’re going to win.

I am not designed to come second or third. I am designed to win.

The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

‚Rocky‘ and ‚Rocky III‘ were the best.

A good boxing competition gives one the sight of fine men in their prime, trained to the ounce, showing the highest skill, pluck and endurance in carrying out their attack and defence under strict rules of fair play and good temper.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

I’m already the face of the UFC, plus the face of boxing, WWE, and Hollywood.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

Once you get on the playing field it’s not about whether you’re liked or not liked. All that matters is to play at a high level and do whatever it takes to help your team win. That’s what it’s about.

We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has.

I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan and Rocky.

I tend not to really think about what other people say. I’d rather just try and focus on what I’m doing, try and win basically.

I never got into training to be an All-Ireland boxing champ or to win a belt. At the start, I just got into it to learn how to defend myself when I got into situations.

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

I’m not the greatest; I’m the double greatest. Not only do I knock ‚em out, I pick the round.

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.

I was a very average player and became a trainer in Germany with a special club.

Joe Frazier got hit more than me – and he doesn’t have Parkinson’s.

This guy Clubber Lang, I’ve been him all my life. He’s mean and hungry just like me.

Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can’t talk. The man can’t fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he’s gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman’s behind.

I used to tease Joe Louis by reminding him that I was the greatest of all time. But Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight fighter ever.

I will fight in many weight divisions.

Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose.

Americans play to win at all times. I wouldn’t give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor ever lose a war.

When you are fitted in a racing car and you race to win, second or third place is not enough.

Ever since I first came here in 1963 to fight Henry Cooper, I have loved the people of England.

Ali’s got a left, Ali’s got a right – when he knocks you down, you’ll sleep for the night; and when you lie on the floor and the ref counts to ten, hope and pray that you never meet me again.

People say that I’m a boxer. I actually started with kick boxing, and then I moved onto boxing, and then I moved onto grappling.

When I won the Golden Gloves in 1960, that made me realize I had a chance. And when I won at the Olympics, that sealed it: I was the champ.

No cricket team in the world depends on one or two players. The team always plays to win.

I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.

If I said I would knock out Sonny Liston in 1 minute and 49 seconds of the first round, that would hurt the gate.

I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I’m in a world of my own.

If they let people go fight jiu-jitsu tournaments, they can’t stop me going to fight a boxing fight.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

I can’t ever remember sitting around and saying, ‚gosh let’s hurry up and get these debates going, that’ll win it for me.‘ Nope.

Never put your money against Cassius Clay, for you will never have a lucky day.

Boxing is limited fighting with a specific rule set. Fighting is true, where you can do anything.

No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson’s. There’s no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.

I’ve seen George Foreman shadow boxing, and the shadow won.

I have a deep, deep belief that if I tell you I’m going to crack you with a clean shot to the chin inside one minute of the first round and you will be unconscious, well, then that’s what will happen.

People think hard sparring will get you sharp. And you do get sharp in the gym. But anytime I’ve trained that way, I’ve actually been a little bit flatter in the fight. And the knockout shot hasn’t come. It’s almost because my training has been too hard.

People don’t realize what they had till it’s gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.

I’m in the game of spinning plates. I’m spinning a boxing plate. I’m spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I’m spinning a Jujitsu plate. I’m spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I’m spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.

I was a huge Mike Tyson fan growing up; his fights were always on in my house.

Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.