“Nothing pains some people more than having to think”

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

“It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.”

“If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”

“The road to freedom is a difficult, hard road. It always makes for temporary setbacks.”

“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.”

“Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.”

“We must substitute courage for caution.”

“We must use time creatively - and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.”

“We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.”

“It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”

“Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but "fear itself." But I wouldn't stop there.”

“But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”

“We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience.”

“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”