The time is always right to do what is right.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
A lie cannot live.
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for what is right.
Our scientific power has outgrown our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
He who passively excepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.
We may have all come in different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty we are free at last.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the floods of fear.
A right delayed is a right denied.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion give man wisdom which is control.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
I submit that 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 it’s injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
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.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.