"My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world"
About this Quote
The intent is playful, but the subtext is combative. Ali frames honesty as “joking” because blunt truth is safer when it arrives wearing a grin. It disarms critics who want to label him arrogant or dangerous; if it’s a joke, why are you so mad? Yet the joke keeps cutting. He’s pointing at a culture that treats sincerity as impolite and demands “humility” mostly from people who’ve been told to stay in their place.
Context matters: Ali’s era was thick with performance - televised sports, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, the Nation of Islam, a media ecosystem hungry for personalities it could both profit from and punish. When Ali refused the draft and paid for it with his title and years of his prime, “telling the truth” stopped being a clever persona and became a risk calculation. That’s why the line works: it collapses comedy and courage into the same act.
Calling it “the funniest joke in the world” isn’t just swagger. It’s an indictment. If truth reads as comedy, it’s because the world’s baseline is absurd.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ali, Muhammad. (2026, January 16). My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-way-of-joking-is-to-tell-the-truth-thats-the-137660/
Chicago Style
Ali, Muhammad. "My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-way-of-joking-is-to-tell-the-truth-thats-the-137660/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-way-of-joking-is-to-tell-the-truth-thats-the-137660/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.
