We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others? Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.
Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyses us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather to harness and master it.
Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.
Freedom has always been an expensive thing. History is fit testimony to the fact that freedom is rarely gained without sacrifice and self-denial.
Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin,...
Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here.
We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war.
We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.
Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.
Agape means recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself.
There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth paying for; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather be a free pauper than a rich slave. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with the lack of self respect.
Without love, there is no reason to know anyone, for love will in the end connect us to our neighbors, our children and our hearts.
We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.
Set yourself earnestly to discover what you are made to do, and then give yourself passionately to the doing of it.
Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s often vocal sanction of things as they are.
If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi and nonviolence. But if your enemy has no conscience like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.
A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.
Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.