Service To Others Is The Rent

Traced to Time magazine, March 27, 1978, and handwritten by Muhammad Ali in a letter to the Atlanta Hilton on April 19, 1978 — the earliest documented instance. The quote also appears in his memoir The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey (2004). Researchers have noted that similar formulations predate Ali, but the phrasing is consistently documented as his, and it reflects the humanitarian values he embraced after converting to Islam and especially after retiring from boxing.