No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they would die for.
Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
There comes a time when silence is betrayal.
I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
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.
We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.
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?’