Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.

Only God is able. It is faith in Him that we must rediscover. With this faith we can transform bleak and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of joy and bring new light into the dark...

The words ‘bad timing’ came to be ghosts haunting our every move in Birmingham. Yet people who used this argument were ignorant of the background of our planning…they did not realize that it was ridiculous...

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals....

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but...

There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

All labor has dignity.

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

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.

We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but...

[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.

We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right-to-work.’ It provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works.’ Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the...

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.

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Our only hope lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism

It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.

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.

Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

Only a “dry as dust” religion prompts a minister to extol the glories of Heaven while ignoring the social conditions that cause men an Earthly hell.

Through our scientific and technological genius we’ve made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together...

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

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

We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighers did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s...

The non-violent resistor not only avoids external, physical violence, but he avoids internal violence of spirit. He not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he refuses to hate him. And he stands with understanding,...

Violence is not only impractical but immoral.

Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice.

Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Mother Dear, one day I’m going to turn this world upside down.”–From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris

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

Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that thereare some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they areworth dying for. And if a person has not found...

[I] know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems….

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.

But the judgement of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions,...

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

We all came in on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now

No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.

If you can’t run then walk If you can’t walk then crawl but whatever you do don’t give up

What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hard-heartedness?

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice.

But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions...

It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.

One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of...

Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.