Joe Louis Quotes

Black men of our day were never told, The sky's the limit. ... We could aspire to Joe Louis but never Henry Ford.

I don't like money actually, but it quiets my nerves.

If you gotta tell them who you are, you ain't nobody.

Everyone has a plan until they've been hit.

Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.

We are both disciples of the Louis Jordan song ‘What’s the Use of Getting Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again).

Joe Louis once said, “Every fighter has a plan until they get hit.

If you cheat on your road work in the dark of the morning, you will be found out in the big fight under the bright lights.

Lots of things wrong with America, but Hitler ain’t going to fix them." On his 1942 enlistment in what a critic called "a white man's army,

Now standing in one corner of a boxing ring with a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, shooting a bullet weighing only 40 grains and with a striking energy of 51 foot pounds at 25 feet from the muzzle, I will guarantee to kill either Gene Tunney or Joe Louis before they get to me from the opposite corner. This is the smallest caliber pistol cartridge made; but it is also one of the most accurate and easy to hit with, since the pistol has no recoil. I have killed many horses with it, cripples and bear baits, with a single shot, and what will kill a horse will kill a man. I have hit six dueling silhouettes in the head with it at regulation distance in five seconds. It was this type of pistol that Millen boys’ colleague, Abe Faber, did all his killings with. Yet this same pistol bullet fired at point blank range will not dent a grizzly’s skull, and to shoot a grizzly with a .22 caliber pistol would simply be one way of committing suicide

Joe has sense enough to know He is a god. So many gods don't know.

I done the best I could with what I had -- Joe Louis

Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit. —Joe Louis

We were singing for Dr. Du Bois' spirit, for the invaluable contributions he made, for his shining intellect and his courage. To many of us he was the first American Negro intellectual. We knew about Jack Johnson and Jesse Owens and Joe Louis. We were proud of Louis Armstrong and Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes. We memorized the verses of James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Countee Cullen, but they were athletes, musicians and poets, and White folks thought all those talents came naturally to Negroes. So, while we survived because of those contributors and their contributions, the powerful White world didn't stand in awe of them. Sadly, we also tended to take those brilliances for granted. But W.E.B. Du Bois and of course Paul Robeson were different, held on a higher or at least on a different plateau than the others.

I think you’re born with the ability to hit. Rocky Marciano didn’t start boxing until after the war when he was already twenty-six, but he was a natural hitter. You need leverage, but a lot of your power comes from your forearm down into your wrist. There’s a snap to your punch that comes from your wrist to your fist, and that’s what knocks the other guy out. You can actually hear that snap; it sounds like a pistol shot when it’s working to perfection. Joe Louis had that famous six-inch punch. He’d knock a guy out with a punch that only traveled six inches. His power came from the snap. It’s like snapping a towel at somebody’s butt. There’s no power in your arms. Then

In the end, though, Joe Louis would have the last laugh. He would indeed fight Max Schmeling again, two years later, and Schmeling would last all of two minutes and four seconds before his corner threw in the towel. Joe Louis would reign as heavyweight champion of the world from 1937 to 1949, long after Joseph Goebbels’s charred body had been pulled out of the smoldering rubble of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin and laid next to those of Magda and their children.

In The Enemy Within, Bobby Kennedy asserted that after the trial, Joe Louis, who was out of work and deeply in debt at the time, was immediately given a well-paying job with a record company that got a $2 million Teamsters pension fund loan. Joe Louis then married the female black lawyer from California whom he had met at the trial. When Bobby Kennedy’s right-hand and chief investigator, the future author Walter Sheridan, tried to interview Joe Louis for the McClellan Committee about the record company job, the ex-champ refused to cooperate and said about Bobby Kennedy: “Tell him to go take a jump off the Empire State Building.” Still, Bobby Kennedy expected to have the last laugh by the end of 1957. Hoffa

Jimmy never met Joe Louis before that trial, only the jury didn’t know that. But Jimmy was strong for civil rights. That part is true. The only thing is, every time he won a trial, he thought he could never lose. And have no doubt: he hated Bobby with a passion. I heard him call Bobby a spoiled brat to his face in an elevator and start after him. I held Jimmy back. Many a time Jimmy said to me they got the wrong brother. But he hated brother Jack, too. Jimmy said they were young millionaires who had never done a day’s work.

It's another to the body, and it looks like Louis is going down.' My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trip of a man running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful...This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than the apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end. We didn't breathe. We didn't hope. We waited.

WHEN IT’S ALL OVER, there’s one final talk I want to make—to the press. When they gather in front of me, it’s hard to forget that nearly all of them had considered me a hoax. They start to shoot questions at me, but I cut them off: “Hold it! Hold it!” I say. “You’ve all had a chance to say what you thought before the fight. Now it’s my turn. You all said Sonny Liston would kill me. You said he was better than Jack Johnson or Jack Dempsey, even Joe Louis, and you ranked them the best heavyweights of all time. You kept writing how Liston whipped Floyd Patterson twice, and when I told you I would get Liston in eight, you wouldn’t believe it. Now I want all of you to tell the whole world while all the cameras are on us, tell the world that I’m The Greatest.” There’s a silence. “Who’s The Greatest?” I ask them. Nobody answers. They look down at their pads and microphones. “Who’s The Greatest?” I say again. They look up with solemn faces, but the room is still silent. “For the LAST TIME!” I shout. “All the eyes of the world on us. You just a bunch of hypocrites. I told you I was gonna get Liston and I got him. All the gamblers had me booked eight-to-one underdog. I proved all of you wrong. I shook up the world! Tell me who’s The Greatest! WHO IS THE GREATEST?” They hesitate for a minute, and finally in a dull tone they all answer, “You are.” •

Shut up!” Joe’s tone was ugly. “If you ain’t willing to try, you can go to hell.

How to make pickles, seven plus four, and the capital of England.” All the children paid close attention. “The capital of England is London,” said Mrs. Jewls. “Seven plus four equals eleven. And pickles are made by sticking cucumbers in brine.” On her desk she had a box of cucumbers and a vat of brine for a demonstration. “Okay, Joe,” said Mrs. Jewls. “How much is seven plus four?” Joe shrugged. “But I just told you, Joe,” said Mrs. Jewls. “Weren’t you listening?” “I don’t know,” said Joe. “Okay, who can tell me how pickles are made? Yes, Jason.” “Eleven!” Jason declared. Mrs. Jewls frowned. “That’s a correct answer,” she said, “but unfortunately I didn’t ask the right question. Can anyone

The jury was composed of eight blacks and four whites. Hoffa and his attorney, the legendary Edward Bennett Williams, struck only white jurors in the selection process. Hoffa had a black female lawyer flown in from California to sit at counsel table. He arranged for a newspaper, The Afro-American, to run an ad praising Hoffa as a champion of the “Negro race.” The ad featured a photo of Hoffa’s black-and-white legal team. Hoffa then had the newspaper delivered to the home of each black juror. Finally, Hoffa’s Chicago underworld buddy Red Dorfman had the legendary boxing champion Joe Louis flown in from his Detroit home. Jimmy Hoffa and Joe Louis hugged in front of the jury as if they were old friends. Joe Louis stayed and watched a couple of days of testimony. When Cye Cheasty testified, Edward Bennett Williams asked him if he had ever officially investigated the NAACP. Cheasty denied he had, but the seed was planted. Hoffa was acquitted. Edward

Richard Durham was a black writer whose credits in radio would run a gamut from Irna Phillips serials to prestige plays for such as The CBS Radio Workshop. But in Destination Freedom Durham wrote from the heart. Anger simmers at the foundation of these shows, rising occasionally to a wail of agony and torment. On no other show was the term “Jim Crow” used as an adjective, if at all: nowhere else could be heard the actual voices of black actors giving life to a real black environment. There were no buffoons or toadies in Durham’s plays: there were heroes and villains, girlfriends and lovers, mothers, fathers, brutes; there were kids named Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, who bucked the tide and became kings in places named Madison Square Garden and Ebbets Field. The early historical dramas soon gave way to a more contemporary theme: the black man’s struggle in a modern racist society. Shows on Denmark Vesey, Frederick Douglass, and George Washington Carver gave way to Richard Wright’s Black Boy and the lives of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Nat King Cole. The Tiger Hunt was a war story, of a black tank battalion; Last Letter Home told of black pilots in World War II. The stories pulled no punches in their execution of the common theme, making Destination Freedom not only the most powerful but the only show of its kind.

The federal government, in its own way, had cut off his balls. It had symbolically lynched Jack Johnson.

done him in! Yuh deny it?" "Deny it?" Lance stared at the man, his eyes watchful. "Why, I never heard of Joe Wilkins,

When you think of baseball, you immediately think of the New York Yankees. When you think of golf, Bobby Jones comes to mind. When you think of boxing, it's Joe Louis. One of these days when people think of football, I want them to think of the Cleveland Browns.

Pujols was a 13th-round selection by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1999 draft. Thirteenth-round draft picks rarely make it—I do not say this lightly. Since the first year of the draft, only 13 percent of all 13th-round picks have made it to the big leagues at all, and less than 8 percent have posted even one win above replacement.

right, Spud,” said a suspicious Miss Spite, before turning to the board and writing on it. “King Louis the sixteenth.” Stepping out into the spring sunshine, Joe turned to Lauren. “You totally saved my butt in there.” “That’s OK. I like you.” She smiled. “Really…?” asked Joe. “Yes!” “Well, then, I wonder if…” Joe stumbled over his words. “If, well…” “Well, what…?” “If you, well, I mean you probably wouldn’t, in fact you definitely wouldn’t, I mean, why would you? You are so pretty and I am just a big lump, but…” The words were spiralling out of his mouth in all directions now, and Joe was beginning to blush fiercely with embarrassment. “Well, if you wanted to…” Lauren took over the speaking for a bit. “If I wanted to go for a walk in the park after school and maybe grab an ice lolly? Yes, I would love to.” “Really?” Joe was incredulous. “Yes, really.” “With me?” “Yes, with you, Joe Potatoe.” Joe was a hundred

Last Argument of Kings.” Inscribed on his cannons by Louis XIV

Within a six-month period in 1935 and 1936, the Tigers, Red Wings, and Lions all captured titles as Detroit’s own Joe Louis reigned as boxing’s uncrowned champion. Detroit remains the only city to score the trifecta of a World Series, a Stanley Cup, and an NFL championship in one season.

She set eight potatoes on his desk. “How many potatoes, Joe?” Joe counted the potatoes. “Seven, five, three, one, two, four, six, eight. There are eight potatoes, Mrs. Jewls.” “No, there are eight,” said Mrs. Jewls. “But that’s what I said,” said Joe. “May I go to recess now?” “No, you got the right answer, but you counted the wrong way again.” She put three books on his desk. “Count the books, Joe.” Joe counted the books. “A thousand, a million, three. Three, Mrs. Jewls.” “Correct,” said Mrs. Jewls. “May I go to recess now?” Joe asked. “No,” said Mrs. Jewls.

We helped plow the fields, build the dams, write the poems and sing the music of America. Are not all Americans proud, of Doree Miller, of Frederick Douglass, of Paul Robeson, of Joe Louis, of Marian Anderson

Lots of things wrong with America, but Hitler ain't going to fix them.

Charles the Simple ruled France from 898– 922. He was the son of Louis the Stammerer. He succeeded his cousin, Charles the Fat.

Bella fica! (beautiful fig, fine sex) the whore said in the back streets of Livorno, proudly slapping her groin when the man tried to get the price down. Braddock, the heavyweight champion of the world, when Joe Louis was destroying him, blood spraying and his manager between rounds wanting to stop the fight, said, I won the title in the ring, I'm going to lose it in the ring. And, after more damage, did. Therefore does the wind keep blowing that holds this great Earth in the air. For this the birds sing sometimes without purpose. We value the soiled old theaters because of what sometimes happens there. Berlin in the Thirties. There were flowers all around Jesus in his agony at Gethsemane. The Lord sees everything, and sees that it is good despite everything. The manger was filthy. The women at Dachau knew they were about to be gassed when they pushed back the Nazi guard who wanted to die with them, saying he must live. And sang for a little while after the doors closed.

Rex Stout, creator of orchid-loving detective Nero Wolfe, achieved a new wave of popularity on this amusing series. Axis shortwave broadcasts were monitored by a staff of linguists at the CBS listening station; what were considered the most outrageous lies were then typed into a weekly log of about 30,000 words. Stout would read this, select up to 150 items he found most interesting, and give them to Sue Taylor White (who had given up a job writing soap operas to do war work) for researching. The most entertaining lies, as well as those lending themselves to what Time called Stout’s “lunch-counter sarcasm,” were used on the air. The lies were read rapid-fire by an announcer, often in mock German or Japanese accents, and were just as quickly countered by Stout. When it was claimed that all the best American baseball players were German, Stout’s reply was typical: “They’ve got the facts, no getting away from it. Take the six leading batters in the major leagues—Williams, Gordon, Wright, Reiser, Lombardi, Medwick. Some bunch of Germans. Also the great German prizefighter, Joe Louis.

Ever since Joe’s accident, Caroline had grouped Noni alongside Louis, Beatrix, and Lily, the four of them crammed into a sack that Caroline slung over her shoulder and carried around. It was heavy, but there was no safe place to put it down.

The name which Joe had given to his master’s illness was certainly not a false one. He did find Sir Louis “in the horrors.” If any father have a son whose besetting sin is a passion for alcohol, let him take his child to the room of a drunkard when possessed by “the horrors.” Nothing will cure him if not that.

How much hair do you have?” Joe shrugged his shoulders. “A lot,” he answered. “But how much, Joe?” asked Mrs. Jewls. “Enough to cover my head,” Joe answered. “Joe, you are going to have to learn how to count,

He led the USFL with 28 sacks for 199 yards lost (both professional football records), but also led in manic mayhem. Early on during training camp, Corker—nicknamed Sack Man—gathered the team in a circle and guided the Panthers in prayer. “He started praying like a Baptist black preacher,” said Dave Tipton, a defensive tackle, “and I thought, Wow, Corker must walk with the Lord.” Not quite. Blessed with the world’s largest penis, Corker never shied away from showing it off to fellow Panthers. “The biggest johnson in the USFL,” said Matt Braswell, the team’s center. “We had women reporters come into the locker room, and Corker would position himself so he was in full view of any females. He had this vat of Nivea skin cream, and he would just make sure to completely rub it and moisturize it.” Corker operated on a clock that required only two to three hours of sleep per night, and was powered by the dual fuels of alcohol and cocaine. He kept a gun in his car’s glove compartment, missed as many meetings as he attended, and proudly pasted his pay stubs to his locker, so that teammates could marvel at the money he was being docked. Once, Hebert drove with Corker from Pontiac to Detroit for a promotional appearance. It was snowing outside, the roads were slippery—“and Corker was driving, smoking one joint after another,” said Hebert. “We both walked in reeking of pot.” In a USFL urban legend that actually checks out, Corker was once found naked on the ice at Joe Louis Arena in the early-morning hours. He had passed out, and spent so much time on the cold surface that some of his skin had to be ripped off. “That,” said Bentley, “surprised none of us.