The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evi...
Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will....
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
Courage faces fear and thereby masters it
It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tired into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all...
What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communis...
Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
the time is always right to do the right thing
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all th...
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is be...
One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.