Bernard Hopkins famous quotes

It takes no effort to be ordinary. Ordinary is not even a challenge. You can do nothing and be ordinary.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Effort #Challenges #Ordinary

If you don't know your own value, somebody will tell you your value, and it'll be less than you're worth.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Values

It takes a very very strong individual not to be corrupt in any of those things as time moves on. Myself and other people who went that road and experienced that world, some got a second birth of life and some is in the dirt.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Strong #Motivation #Moving

I function better when my back is to the wall.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Wall #Function

The powers that be don’t want athletes or boxers to become as smart as they are.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Smart #Athlete #Want

I was knocking guys out in the streets before I knew how to throw a jab and keep your chin down, In most neighbourhoods, the guy that could fight gets respect. You got in the parties free. I never had to pay the dollar because people were scared of me. But back then I was ignorant.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Party #Fighting #People

Did you hear what this idiot just said!? He said it's not about the W...It's everything about the W with me!
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Winning #Idiot #Said

I was told I would be back in 90 days. If I listened to people, I would be back where I came from - the penitentiary.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #People #Would Be

When you have somebody that's smart and you're not so smart, to me that's modern day slavery because you're being dictated to.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Smart #Slavery

The NBA has a voice that's why they have a lockout. The NFL has a voice that's why they had a lockout. Boxing is the only sport that's individually represented the individual people - Managers, Promoters and Boxers.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Sports #Motivation #Nba

I'd rather be an adviser. I don't wanna become a trainer because I think with the knowledge and the business sense that I've accomplished through my career and have credibility, why would I reduce myself down to being in a gym with a bunch of training which is not a bad thing to give advice, but I can do that with a suit and tie on and also be there when the cheques are written. I don't wanna be there when the cheques are handed down from 3 or 4 people's hands and then it hits mine as a trainer because 9/10 times, deductions have come out of that.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Thinking #Hands

You’re hated by some, loved by others, but that’s what’s great about being different. If everybody loved you, that means you’re not doing the right thing most of the time.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Mean #Being Different #Hated

I was made to be where I'm at. I just had to go through some challenges, so that I can educate others later.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Work Out #Challenges #Made

There are so many things I've done that the world of boxing has witnessed. It's going to be difficult for the boxing people to pick one of my performances as the best.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#People #Boxing #Work Out

I've done so many unpredictable things and so profoundly. Even the people who want to go against me, are afraid to go against me. They've been wrong so many times. A lot of them are just being mum right now. They must feel I can still do things.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#People #Work Out #Done

This is a great position to be in. I don't really believe there is any fighter, in any decade that can be in my position of luxury that I've been in for many years.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Believe #Years #Luxury

Early on in my career I had the kind of anxious where you couldn't sleep at night. That anxiousness is like a virus we all have in us. Some you can deal with but some will wipe you out.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Sleep #Night #Careers

The Pavlik fight was the first time I heard the masses put the word knockout attached to my opponent. I'm real keen on what people say. Ninety percent of it might be garbage, but something in there might be the plan. That woke me up and I knew I wanted to destroy.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Real #Fighting #People

The only thing I can do is be right about what I say. Because I know I'm being watched. I understand what I'm facing. All I can do is put the work behind it.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Work Out #Behinds

Enjoy that you can see me now. I would love to see the great Michael Jordan and Julius Erving in their younger days, but they're gone. Look at me at 50, I'm going to eat right and live right so I can take less punches and look normal.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Work Out #Looks #Gone

This fight isn't about boxing, it's something deeper than that.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Fighting #Boxing #Work Out

I didn't need to take any fight for the last 10 years. But I've always fought the best and I've always wanted to prove myself to the best.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Fighting #Years #Work Out

I always not only want push the envelope in my career but I also have an itch for going against the grain.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Careers #Work Out #Want

Understand that I'm at my best when it comes to proving a point, not only to show that I'm a better fighter and a better athlete at 40½ years old, but I'm at my best when I know I've got to beat the system again.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Athlete #Years

I am going in there to win this fight. I don't think people are taking me seriously. I'm gonna surprise a lot of people. This guy helped two people make history.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Fighting #Winning

I must destroy everybody that comes in front of me. I must execute them and I must do it in grand style. I must slay Robert Allen like I must slay De La Hoya or anybody else that steps in that ring.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Style #Steps

I got knocked down. Anybody could be knocked down, anybody can be knocked out, but it's not what happened, but what happens next.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Next #Fighter

Smokey Wilson was like my Gandhi. If I had run into somebody else in prison, with a different set of values, the world might have never known one of the greatest boxing talents ever to come out of Philadelphia.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Running #Motivation #Philadelphia

I'm lining up my troops to go to battle with. Tarver is the man at light heavyweight. He has the credibility of the fans and media, and that's what counts. That's why I am taking this risk, but I am taking it by preparing myself with good people.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Men #Light

The only way you can get experience is from the clock. Time works with some people and against some people. Fortunately, the clock has worked in my favor.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #People #Favors

I am an old man, I just happen to be an old man that can fight.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Fighting #Men #Old Man

I still shop at Costco. I just started tipping two years ago.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Years #Two

Boxers are resilitant guys. We know how to take of a big punch that hits us, we know how to survive. Oscar is a survivor, he's gonna be back bigger and stronger.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Guy #Stronger

I like Sergio Martinez. I think he's strong, he's gritty, he's got plenty of heart, he's not the fanciest guy you might have seen in boxing but he has the goods to be around a long time in the Middleweight division.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Strong #Motivation #Heart

I've got a history of frustrating guys and making them angry.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Guy #Fighter

The streets was basically my parents.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Parent #Fighter

I really didn't care. I'd do something to somebody and walk in front of them the next day like it never happened. I had very very low value on my own life.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Care #Next

Anybody who thinks I'm taking this fight for a paycheck doesn't know me. My whole life I've been achieving the impossible.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Fighting #Thinking

You've got to be willing to look at a guy's face and say I will kill you if I have to. You've got to be willing to look in his face and say that I will stab you, I will hurt you and you can't talk the game, you've got to really act and do the game. Prison is a thing where talking gets you killed. What gets you respect is you do. The guy that you fear is a guy that says nothing.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Hurt #Motivation #Talking

I wouldn't wanna fight me, because I know it wouldn't be a good outcome for both.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Fighting #Outcomes

If I'm in a situation where Duane Ford is one of the judges, I have to pick it up.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Judging #Fighter

There's no great person that lived that didn't go through scrutiny or ridicule and prosecution in all types of ways, to be who they are in history.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Way #Fighter

The controversy was that Chad Dawson thought he was in an MMA fight and not a boxing match.
-- Bernard Hopkins

#Motivation #Fighting #Mma