For weeks Tyrone thought he was going to die any minute, and there were also times when he was afraid he wasnt going to die.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
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.
Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition.
There’s a sorrow and pain in everyone’s life, but every now and then there’s a ray of light that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort like hot soup and a soft bed.
Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent.
A lie cannot live.
It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.
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.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.
If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim.
One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong.
The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.
Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.
Life was not longer something to endure, but to live.
Pressure makes diamonds.