We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation – either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.
The time is always right to do the right thing.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.
Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.
The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.