One who breaks an unjust 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 its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

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 its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.