Motivational Quotes From Legend Boxers To Ignite Your Fight Spirit

People often say that boxing is a mental battle as much as it is a physical one, and those who have stepped into the ring can certainly affirm this truth. Many of the greatest boxers of all time not only faced opponents within the ropes but also battled their own inner demons.

The internal struggle is a recurring theme in the world of boxing, a sport that uniquely compels individuals to delve deep into their own identity. Amidst the cold ring ropes and the stretched canvas, people unearth their true capabilities in the face of adversity.

Throughout history, legendary boxers have shared words of profound wisdom—timeless quotes that continue to resonate. Even today, ardent boxing enthusiasts cherish these profoundly inspirational words, applying them not only in the ring but also in life.

Let’s take a journey into the past to explore the insights of these boxing legends. In this article, Evolve Daily presents five of the most iconic quotes in boxing and the fighters who imparted these enduring words of wisdom.

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Motivational Quotes From Legend Boxers

1. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’.” –Muhammad Ali

2. “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing. But the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.” –Cus D’amato

3. “If you work hard in training, the fight is easy.” –Manny Pacquiao

4. “You never lose until you actually give up.” –Mike Tyson

5. “It ain’t about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” –Rocky Balboa

6. “The three toughest fighters I ever fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. I fought Sugar so many times, I’m surprised I’m not diabetic.” —Jake LaMotta

7. “We gon’ float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. AH! Rumble, young man rumble! AH!”—Bundini

8. “That man was beautiful. Timing, speed, reflexes, rhythm, his body, everything was beautiful. And to me, still, I would say pound for pound…I’d say I’m the greatest heavyweight of all time, but pound for pound, I still say Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest of all time.”—Muhammad Ali

9. “Only in America.”—Don King

10. “Even though I heard him say he doesn’t believe, cuz’ that’s why from watching Ali gave me the great deal of confidence and deep-down inner belief to believe there’s no man fighting that could beat me.”—Mike Tyson

11. “To see a man beaten not by a better opponent but by himself is a tragedy.” —Cus D’Amato

12. “I’m not God, but I am something similar.”—Roberto Duran

13. “It’s been like that forever. We got spoiled by Joe Louis, by Rocky Marciano. Muhammad ruined us for everybody. He was great outside [the ring]; he was great inside. We got so accustomed to it we thought we deserved it.”—Angelo Dundee

14. “If you screw things up in tennis, it’s 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it’s your ass.”-Randall “Tex” Cobb

15.“The possession of muscular strength and the courage to use it in contests with other men for physical supremacy does not necessarily imply a lack of appreciation for the finer and better things of life.”—Jack Johnson

16. “You never got me down Ray.”—Robert DeNiro (as Jake LaMotta)

17. “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.”—Cus D’Amato

18. “Once that bell rings you’re on your own. It’s just you and the other guy.”—Joe Louis

19. “Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. A fighter takes a punch, hits back with three punches.” —Roberto Duran

20. “He saved my life, he saved my career. I can’t thank him enough for the chance to fight him.”—Ken Norton

21. “Bruce Lee was an artist and, like him, I try to go beyond the fundamentals of my sport. I want the public to see a knockout in the making.” – Sugar Ray Leonard

22. “Rhythm is everything in boxing. Every move you make starts with your heart, and that’s in rhythm or you’re in trouble.” – Sugar Ray Robinson

23. “The question isn’t at what age I want to retire, it’s at what income.” – George Foreman

24. “His mouth made him feel like he was gonna win. Not his hands, I had my hand. He had his lips.” – Joe Frazier 

25. “The tempt for greatness is the biggest drug in the world.” – Mike Tyson

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Boxing Quotes About Training

26. “He can have heart, he can hit harder and he can be stronger, but there’s no fighter smarter than me.” – Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr.

27. “I fight for perfection” – “Iron” Mike Tyson

28. “Sure the fight was fixed. I fixed it with a right hand.” – George Foreman 

29. “The loss just made me hungry; it made me want to go out and win another title.” – Thomas “Hitman” Hearns 

30. “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.” – Muhammad Ali

31. “In order to be at the top and maintain your focus you have to have something that motivates you. For me, it was what I perceived as a lack of respect from the boxing world as well as the media, which made me want to work so hard and be great.” – “Marvellous” Marvin Hagler

32. “To be a boxer is to be within yourself, inside your thoughts and feelings.” ― Brian D’Ambrosio

33. “Boxing’s not that straightforward. You can practice and practice, but the real experience will always be different. Lots of things are like that, actually.” — Franny Billingsley

34. “Boxing is only done by people who do not respect human life and human dignity!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan

35. “We all have boxing gloves within trying to conquer our spirits in the ring we call our minds, Souls never get knocked out.” ― Goitsemang Mvula

36. “Boxing creates fighters. This is not a place for show offs or inflated influencers.” ― Abhysheq Shukla

37. “Everyone loves a good boxing story, especially God.” ― Nick Cave

38. “A boxer is always armed.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

39. “Like a boxer in a title fight, you have to walk in that ring alone.” ― Billy Joel

40. “We all fight for money, some for power, but most of all for love. But me, I fight to become a champion.” ― Jonathan Anthony Burkett

41. “I liked that title. I didn’t want to lose it to anybody, but if I had to lose it, I’m glad I lost it to you. You’re a good fighter and gonna be a great champ.” — Jersey Joe Walcott

42. “It’s like someone jammed an electric light bulb in your face, and busted it. I thought half my head was blowed off…When he knocked me down I could have stayed there for three weeks.” — James J Braddock

43. “I don’t think his hands could take the abuse.” — Randall “Tex” Cobbs

44. “There are too many governing bodies. They’re all corrupt. I think they have replaced the old Mobsters with the kind of ‘corporate rule’ of boxing.” — Larry Merchant

45. “You can be free. You can be black. Look at me! I’m the Heavyweight Champion! Can’t nobody stop me.” — Muhammad Ali

46. “There’s ups and downs with boxing, layoffs are part of the sport and they can either help or hurt a guy.”-Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

47. “Know that the power comes from within: when you are tired, or you want to give up, dig deep. Dig deep for whatever reason – in boxing, in sport, in life.”- Joseph Parker

48. “To win takes a complete commitment of mind and body. When you can’t make that commitment, they don’t call you a champion anymore.”- Rocky Marciano

49. “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”- Muhammad Ali

50. “Inactivity is the biggest sin in boxing.”- Sugar Ray Leonard

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More Uplifting Boxing Quotes

51. “There is so much to learn from boxing, you can never have learnt everything; anybody who says they know it all is lying. You can’t – there is always something new to learn.”- Nicola Adams

52. “A sight game is that I am hurt, but I aim to make you believe I am not even hurt, and with this confidence appearing on my face, I don’t panic, otherwise your opponent will know that you are hurt. That’s the whole art game in boxing.”- Evander Holyfield

53. “Life doesn’t run away from nobody. Life runs at people.” –Joe Frazier

54. “Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.”- Joyce Carol Oates

55. “In order to be at the top and maintain your focus you have to have something that motivates you. For me, it was what I perceived as a lack of respect from the boxing world as well as the media, which made me want to work so hard and be great.”- Marvin Hagler

56. “Boxing is the ultimate challenge. There’s nothing that can compare to testing yourself the way you do every time you step in the ring.”- Sugar Ray Leonard

57. “Boxing gave me the opportunities to grow into the person that I am today.”- Alexis Arguello

58. “Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”- Muhammad Ali

59. “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”– E. E. Cummings

60. “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”– Muhammad Ali

61. “Martial arts is not about fighting; it’s about building character.”– Bo Bennett

62. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”– Kandarp Gandhi

63. “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.”– Herbert Hoover

64. “Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.”– Napoleon Hill

65. “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”– Mahatma Gandhi

66. “When people ask me for inspirational quotes, I don’t know anything about that, all I can say is when you don’t eat for a week the only choice you have is to fight.”– Forgotten Champion

67. “To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”– Sun Tzu

68. “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”– Margaret Thatcher

69. “It’s different when you become a professional, because you also have to become a businessman, and that takes something away from it.”—Sugar Ray Leonard

70. “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”—Howard Cosell

71. “I made a lot of mistakes out of the ring, but I never made any in it.”—Jack Johnson

72. “Eye of the Tiger.”—Survivor

73. “The time may have come to say goodbye to Muhammad Ali, because very honestly, I don’t think he can beat George Foreman.”—Howard Cosell

74. “He went to the hospital with bleeding kidneys and me, I went dancing with my wife.”—George Chuvalo

75. “This fight is more about what Roy Jones lost than what I took,”—Antonio Tarver

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Boxing Quotes To Make Fighters Champions

76. “I don’t fight for legacy. I don’t fight for none of that, I fight for that check. I’m in the check cashing business.”—Floyd Mayweather Jr.

77. “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong. They never called me nigger.”—Muhammad Ali

78. “I was painfully initiated into boxing, because the guys I fought were a lot bigger than me.” – Sugar Ray Leonard

79. “Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world.” – Frank Bruno

80. “In boxing you create a strategy to beat each new opponent, it’s just like chess.” – Lennox Lewis

81. “It’s less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment.” – Jimmy Smits

82. “That’s the most beautiful thing that I like about boxing: you can take a punch. The biggest thing about taking a punch is your ego reacts and there’s no better spiritual lesson than trying to not pay attention to your ego’s reaction.” – David O Russell

83. “To become a champion, fight one more round.” – James Corbett

84. “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” – Jack Dempsey

85. “The man who has no imagination has no wings.” – Muhammad Ali

86. “When I was a young fellow I was knocked down plenty. I wanted to stay down, but I couldn’t. I had to collect the two dollars for winning or go hungry. I had to get up. I was one of those hungry fighters. You could have hit me on the chin with a sledgehammer for five dollars. When you haven’t eaten for two days you’ll understand.” – J.Dempsey

87. “To be a champ you have to believe in yourself when no one else will.” – Sugar Ray Robinson

88. “I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!” — Mike Tyson

89. “My punches are just as hard in Chicago as in New York.” — Sonny Liston

90. “In life and in a boxing ring, the defeat is not declared when you fall down. It is declared only when you refuse to get up.” ― Manoj Arora

91. “Being emotionally undercut by some friends, can feel like a physical uppercut to the chin, when deep down you just weren’t ready for it, again.” ― Curtis Tyrone Jones

92. “Take the time to train your mind.” ― Floyd Mayweather

93. “Sometimes there’s no way to get the upper hand without taking a few uppercuts.” ― Curtis Tyrone Jones

94. “Fighters find solace in the boxing ring.” ― Abhysheq Shukla

95. “Boxing is changing and training methods are slowly being dragged into the 21st century.” – Barry McGuigan

96. “I have always adhered to two principles. The first one is to train hard and get in the best possible physical condition. The second is to forget all about the other fellow until you face him in the ring and the bell sounds for the fight.” – Rocky Marciano

97. “My arms are too short to box with God.” ― Johnny Cash

98. “If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, then they can sure make something out of you.” ― Muhammad Ali

99. “The same hand that can write a beautiful poem, can knock you out with one punch—that’s Poetic Justice.” ― “Irish” Wayne Kelly

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100. “Never fight ugly people—they have nothing to Lose.” ― “Irish” Wayne Kelly