"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

"One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."

"I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good."

"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

"I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law."

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood."

"The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict."

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?""

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

"The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice."

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

"Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

"We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace."

"There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love."

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals."

"I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."

"A riot is the language of the unheard."

"Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see."

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

"A lie cannot live."

"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."

"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."

"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."

"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

"I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

"The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

"If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."

"Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."

"The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend."

"The time is always right to do what is right."

"All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem."

"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

"Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better."

"Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness."