What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.

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.

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.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.

One of the grat tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practise the...

There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the fires...

One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. .

Through violence you may murder the hater, but you cannot murder hate.

A right delayed is a right denied.

[If] a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

I have a dream. . .

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.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive

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

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 to speak of timing when the clock of history showed that the Negro had already suffered one hundred years of...

…The straitjackets of race prejudice and discrimination do not wear only southern labels. The subtle, psychological technique of the North has approached in its ugliness and victimization of the Negro the outright terror and open brutality of the South.

When religion becomes so involved in a future good “over yonder” that it forgets the present evils over here it is as dry as dust religion and needs to be condemned.

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

You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

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 its conscience.

God is able to give you the power to endure that which cannot be changed… Why be anxious? Come what may, God is able.

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.

As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow. But to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I was in the kitchen drinking coffee when I heard Coretta cry, “Martin, Martin, come quickly!” I put down my cup and ran toward the living room. As I approached the front window Coretta pointed joyfully to a slowly moving bus: “Darling, it’s empty!

I suggested then that the prize was not given merely as recognition of past achievement, but also as recognition, a more profound recognition, that the nonviolent way, the American Negro’s way, was the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting...

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win, and their participants know it.

I always contended that we as a race must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, but to create a moral balance in society where democracy and brotherhood would be reality for all men.

Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering...

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s...

Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice.

Love or perish.” Hate is too great a burden to bear.

Nonviolence is power, but it is the right and good use of power.

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tired into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.

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 the law

One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

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, goodwill at all times.

The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. (from “Rediscovering Lost Values”)

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

A lie cannot live.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the...