Tolerance and understanding won't 'trickle down' in our society any more than wealth does.

Home is the place you can go when you're whipped.

Every time I look in the mirror, I see that kid from Louisville, Kentucky, staring back at me. His name was Cassius Clay.

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

Champions have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.

I would like to say that whites jumped right behind Malcolm X. They’re makin’ a book about him, it’s required readin’ in all colleges now, and they’re makin’ a movie about him, and projectin’ him as the leader and if you read his book and see the movie that’s comin’ out, it’ll make you hate Elijah Mohammed and the Muslims. Mainly, this is done to turn the black people against the real leader and I’d like to say that this is the way white people rule.

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.