Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. He was “The Greatest”. Muhammad Ali, one of the world’s greatest boxers, died on Friday, June 3, at the age of 74. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky, Ali started boxing at age 12 after his new bicycle was stolen and he vowed to policeman, Joe Martin, that he would “whup” the person who took it.
When Martin began training him at his boxing gym, Ali was only 89 pounds at the time. It would be the beginning of a 6-year amateur career that ended with the light heavyweight Olympic gold medal in 1960. Ali converted to Islam in 1964, changing his name from Cassius Clay – what he called his “slave name” – to Muhammad Ali after becoming affiliated with the Nation of Islam.
Ali once calculated he had taken 29,000 punches to the head and made US$57 million in his professional career. But the effect of the punches would haunt him until his death on June 3, 2016. His career record was 56 victories, 37 of them by knockout, and five losses. He held the world championship an unprecedented three different times.
In his autobiography – “The Greatest” – Ali wrote that he tossed the medal into the Ohio River after a fight with a white motorcycle gang, which started when he and a friend were refused service at a Louisville restaurant. He later told friends he simply misplaced the medal. But it was his refusal to be inducted into the Army that angered many white Americans.
After he knocked out Zora Folley in the seventh round at Madison Square Garden in New York for his eighth title defense, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, stripped of his title and banned from boxing. He never went to prison while his case was under appeal and in 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction.
In 1984 Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome that apparently was linked to his career. When he was about to fight the powerful George Foreman, who had knocked Joe Frazier down 6 times in a second round TKO, many feared the then 32-year-old Ali would get hurt seriously. He went on to terminate Foreman in the eighth round, in what he would later call the “rope-a-dope” strategy.
What was the secret to Muhammad Ali’s success? Amazingly, he admitted it had very little to do with hitting the gym. When the U.S. Army measured his IQ, Ali only scored 78. When asked about his intelligence, Ali said – “I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest”. So, if Ali wasn’t smart, how could he become so great? Perhaps his quotes can solve the mystery.
{ 1 } “If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.”
{ 2 } “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”
{ 3 } “The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
{ 4 } “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
{ 5 } “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'”
{ 6 } “I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”
{ 7 } “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”
{ 8 } “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 really was the greatest”
{ 9 } “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.”
{ 10 } “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
{ 11 } “You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait `til I whup George Foreman’s behind.”
{ 12 } “I got speed and endurance. You’d better increase your insurance.”
{ 13 } “What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.”
{ 14 } “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”
{ 15 } “Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you’re going to be right.”
{ 16 } “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”
{ 17 } “Braggin’ is when a person says something and can’t do it. I do what I say.
{ 18 } “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
{ 19 } “I’m young; I’m handsome; I’m fast. I can’t possibly be beaten.”
{ 20 } “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it.”
{ 21 } “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.”
{ 22 } “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.”
{ 23 } “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.”
{ 24 } “A man who has no imagination has no wings.”
{ 25 } “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”
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June 6th, 2016 by financetwitter
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