If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
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.
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.
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
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.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.
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.
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.
We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
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?’
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.
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.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.
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.