I'm gonna have to be killed before I lose, and I ain't going to die easy.

I'm gonna have to be killed before I lose, and I ain't going to die easy.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

God gave me this illness to remind me that I'm not number One; he is.

God gave me this illness to remind me that I'm not number One; he is.

Fifteen referees. I want fifteen referees to be at this fight because there ain't no one man who can keep read more

Fifteen referees. I want fifteen referees to be at this fight because there ain't no one man who can keep up with the pace I'm gonna set except me. There's not a man alive who can whup me. I'm too fast. I'm too smart. I'm too pretty. I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked.

I say get an education. Become an electrician, a mechanic, a doctor, a lawyer — anything but a fighter. In read more

I say get an education. Become an electrician, a mechanic, a doctor, a lawyer — anything but a fighter. In this trade, it's the managers that make the money and last the longest.

Explaining why he refused induction into the Army. I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs.

Explaining why he refused induction into the Army. I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs.

To be a Negro in America is to hope against hope.

To be a Negro in America is to hope against hope.

Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we read more

Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time. Everyone who tel

Only in the case of the Negro has the melting pot failed to bring a minority into the full stream read more

Only in the case of the Negro has the melting pot failed to bring a minority into the full stream of American life