Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

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.

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

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

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?'

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

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.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

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.

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.

I submit that an individual who breaks a 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.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

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

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

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

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.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

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.

Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.

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

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

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.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

The time is always right to do what is right.

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

We must use time creatively.

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

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

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

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

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

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.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

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.

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.