“Instinctively we struck out for dignity first because personal degradation as an inferior human being was even more keenly felt than material privation.”

“The Cross is the eternal expression of the length to which God will go to in order to restore broken community.”

“I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action.”

“The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door.”

“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.”

“All labor has dignity.”

“No one can understand my conflict who has not looked into the eyes of those he loves, knowing that he has no alternative but to take a dangerous stand that leaves them tormented.” 

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

“We all came in on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now”

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”

“The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.”

“We are going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. So however difficult it is during this period, however difficult it is to continue to live with the agony and the continued existence of racism, however difficult it is to live amidst the constant hurt, the constant insult and the constant disrespect, I can still sing we shall overcome. We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right. "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne."   Yet that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the Bible is right.  "You shall reap what you sow." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all of God's children all over this nation - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, We are Free At Last.”

“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”

“Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but... groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.”

“We cannot walk alone.”