“Intelligence plus character is the true meaning of education.”

“Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.”

“Science investigates, religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power, religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts, religion deals with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralysing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.”

“The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open”

“There are two types of laws, those that are just and those that are unjust. A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law...Any law that uplifts the human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.”

“In our society, it is psychological murder to deprive a man of a job...you are in substance saying to that man "You have no right to exist.”

“The old guard in any society resents new methods, for old guards wear the decorations and medals won by waging battle in the accepted manner.”

“The absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.”

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

“The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.”

“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 indirectly.”

“The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today...  ...some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.”

“...privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.”

“One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong”

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." 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. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. 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. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”