Cus D'Amato Quotes

Fear is like fire. You can make it work for you: it can warm you in the winter, cook your food when you’re hungry, give you light when you are in the dark, and produce energy. Let it go out of control and it can hurt you, even kill you… Fear is a friend of exceptional people… You must understand fear so you can manipulate it.

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.

Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you.

Emotions, particularly anger, are like fire. They can cook your food and keep you warm, or they can burn your house down.

People who are born round don’t die square.

Mike’s (Tyson) punch is like an atomic bomb in that it is relative to nature. Both have no value unless you have a means of conveying it to the target. He is boxing-smart.

There is no such thing as a natural puncher. There is a natural aptitude for punching and that is different. Nobody is born the best. You have to practice and train to become the best.

Boxing is a contest of character and ingenuity. The boxer with more will, determination, desire, and intelligence is always the one who comes out the victor.

The punch that knocks a man out is the punch that he doesn’t see.

There is no difference between a hero and a coward in what they feel. It’s what they do that makes them different. The hero and the coward feel exactly the same, but you have to have the discipline to do what a hero does and to keep yourself from doing what the coward does.

No matter what anyone says, no matter the excuse or explanation, whatever a person does in the end is what he intended to do all along.

To see a man beaten not by a better opponent but by himself is a tragedy.