Top 143 Quotes & Sayings by Sugar Ray Leonard - Page 2

Boxing should focus on pitting champion versus champion - those are the fights that everyone wants to see. The sports also needs to work on developing new heroes and personalities. I'd like to see more vignettes on fighters, focusing on their lives, goals and stories. Boxers need to be larger than life.

People try to live vicariously through fighters, but it's one-on-one; it's primal. There's no other feeling like it. The problem for me was accepting it - that nothing compares to being champ.

Boxing will always be in my life.

I've done a lot of things in my life that I'm not proud of.

When you're a boxer, there is a lot of downtime and long periods of inactivity.

For the most part, I think video games do a good job of capturing the essence of boxing. However, I'd like to continue to see them push the realism, emphasizing the skill involved.

I enjoy the school run and being a dad. Boxing will always be with me. I like that.

I was not athletically inclined. I was very quiet, introverted, non-confrontational. My three older brothers were athletes - basketball, football - but I was kind of a momma's boy. Then one day, my brother Roger encouraged me to go to the boxing gym with him. I tried the gloves on, and it just felt so natural.

I made an instant connection with boxing right away. Boxing became such a part of me. I ate boxing, I slept boxing, I lived boxing. Boxing was a way of expressing myself because I was not that outspoken.

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. On the downside, you meet a lot of really bad people in boxing, at all stages of your career.

Sugar Ray Robinson was probably the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all time.

To be the best, you need to spend hours and hours and hours running, hitting the speed bag, lifting weights and just focusing on training.

Looking back, yes, I made too many comebacks. But each comeback I was 100 percent sure that I would win. I never came back for the money, because I didn't need it. The adulation I was getting anyway in other spheres. But I'm a guy who likes to see how close he can get to the edge of the mountain - that's what makes me tick.

When the trainer talks to the fighter, there's a connection. You don't always have to say much.

Boxing is individual, although there's a team concept because you need a great corner, you need a great trainer, you need a great prep man, you need all of these things, but it's more of a Mano a Mano; it's more you versus me. I miss that time in training camp and Dad and Mom cooking meals. It was one big family.

I watched Ali, studied Ali, and I studied Sugar Ray Robinson. I watched them display showmanship. I watched them use pizzazz, personality, and charisma. I took things from them and borrowed things from them because boxing is entertainment.

The thing about boxers is that there's respect there. You beat me, and I may not like it, but you know what, deep down inside, I respect you. And that's the code of honor.

I always designed my robes and how I would present myself at every fight.

I used to walk to the Washington Monument from North L Street Northwest. And I was so hungry at times, I would stop and look into the trash cans, and if there was a half a sandwich, I would take that sandwich and eat it. It was just a matter of survival. I didn't think much of it, but it was just the way things were.

I never met a person as determined as my mother. From working hard for six kids to just trying to keep the household down or maintain my father's discipline, my dad, I'm so much like my father too. My father was so introverted, quiet, shy, nice. I got attributes from my father and mother.

I made mistakes, but I'm luckier than most. I've got a successful business, lots of fans who think a lot of me and a family who loves me.

You get these moments in the ring that live forever. That's what Muhammad Ali accomplished, and I hope that I have, too.

There will always be something about two men in the ring - a mystique because it's pure man-to-man competition. Because of the history boxing has and the tradition it holds, boxing will always have a that mystique.

I run with music all the time. I cannot run without my iPod. I have everything. Teddy Pendergrass. Luther Van Dross. Michael Jackson. Outkast. If an Usher song comes on and it's fast, I go fast.

I wouldn't change anything because the mistakes and the hurt are as important as all the great fights. They made me who I am today.

Normally, I would run with a group of guys in my camps. A couple of days before the fight, I would run by myself. That was my time to choreograph the fight in my head, so I needed to be myself.

My very best memory of Montreal was the moment inside the Olympic arena when I was waiting under the stadium and those majestic gates opened up. It was a whole other world.

I remember all the important fights. Vividly. In detail.

I run three to four times a week. I go down to Orange County in California and I run all the time... all the time. You see the oceans, the trees. I like running in hot weather. I like to sweat and get all those toxins out of my system. I thoroughly enjoy it.

I was just such a quiet kid. I found boxing when I was 14 years old. I went down to the gym because my brother, who used to beat me up all the time, introduced me to boxing. I found boxing to be a sport that I felt safe in because I controlled what was in those four squares.

The time to stop is when the other guy hits you more than you hit him.

The Olympics meant everything to me. Going through them is like nothing else you will ever experience. For those few weeks, you are in another world. At that point, I couldn't see how there could ever be anything better.

Ray Leonard is more the family man, kind of quiet. He's not as outgoing as Sugar Ray Leonard. Sugar Ray Leonard was very determined, very focused, very outgoing and very selfish, if you will. There are two different individuals there.

I asked my kids, 'Do you know what Papa used to do.' They said, 'You were a boxer, you won the Olympics!' And that's what they know.

Boxing is a sport, but it's also entertainment. I wanted to transcend the sport and be considered just not as a fighter, or a champion, but someone very special.

Fighters display two things. They display confidence, or they display a look that says, 'I'm not sure.'

I'm one of the most optimistic persons in the world. I always believed that - there's another shot, another chance. In boxing, I never gave up. I kept trying, kept trying. Even when things seemed so dim, I continued to push forward to make something happen in my favor.

I learned how to sumon, from somewhere deep within, the extra will I didn't know I possessed. Knowing it was there, and could be tapped again, gave me the boost of confidence I would rely on for years to come.

I always expect unexpected challenges.

I tried the gloves on, and it just felt so natural. From that moment I became so embedded in boxing. I found a friend in boxing.

Inactivity is the biggest sin in boxing.

I found boxing when I was 14 years old. I went down to the gym because my brother, who used to beat me up all the time, introduced me to boxing. I found boxing to be a sport that I felt safe in because I controlled what was in those four squares.

I consider myself blessed. I consider you blessed. We've all been blessed with God-given talents. Mine just happens to be beating people up.

I've always believed that you can be whatever you want to be if you are willing to sacrifice and dedicate yourself.

The only way for a fighter to get back in shape is to fight his way back.

If I hadn't had the talent, the networks wouldn't have televised my fights. No one has made me; I made myself. I paid my dues

I saw Todd Bridges talk about being abused on Oprah. Something that he said, or an expression that he made that gave me that little boost I needed to be open about it and to talk about it as transparently as I did. When I told my wife, she couldn't believe it. She was petrified, because it's such a no-no, taboo, a hands-off subject. But I'd have to say hearing Todd Bridges on Oprah was my watershed moment.

Everything you want to know about a fighter is in his eyes. The look in his eyes tells the truth.

Spread your love and fly.

Ali's belief in himself was something I picked up on, and it's become my own philosophy

I want to be great, something special.

My ambition is not to be just a good fighter. I want to be great, something special.

You don't play boxing. You really don't. You play golf, you play tennis, but you don't play boxing.

It is wonderful. It truly is. It is the only thing that is real! It's you against me, it's challenging another guy's manhood. With gloves. Words cannot describe that feeling of being a man, of being a gladiator, of being a warrior. It's irreplaceable.

While each of us faces enormous challenges every day, it's not the sins we commit that will define us, its how we respond to them.

We're all endowed with God-given talents. Mine happens to be hitting people in the head.

When I was 15 or 16 and I started climbing up the ladder of success in amateur boxing, a reporter asked me, "What do you want to be?" I think he was expecting me to say, "A champion." I said, "I want to be special." I don't know why I said that, but I didn't just want to be a fighter. I wanted to have an impact with people, particularly kids.

My toughest fight was myself. For me to disclose and let things out was not easy because we don't want to seem weak or like we are different, but I learned that it's okay.

You have to know you can win. You have to think you can win. You have to feel you can win.

I wouldnt change anything because the mistakes and the hurt are as important as all the great fights. They made me who I am today.