“Reps, reps, reps”

“As long as other people's opinions matter more than your own, you're owned by them. You're not even free.”

“That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)”

“Only during a period of war does it become obvious how millions of people can be manipulated. People, millions of people, are filled with pride while doing things which those same people actually consider stupid, evil, dangerous, painful, and criminal, and they strongly criticize these things—but continue doing them.”

“Have you ever gone to the furniture store to buy a chair without sitting in it? Have you ever purchased a car without test-driving it? Of course not, and God also tests us to reveal the quality of our faith. No matter what we think of ourselves, we find out what we are truly like in times of difficulty. Good times don’t bring the worst out of us, but hard times do. That is why God says these difficult times are good for us. They allow us to see what is in our character that needs to be changed. They also give us opportunity to use our faith, and faith only grows through our using it. As we choose to learn to trust God instead of getting upset about something, we experience His faithfulness, which, in turn, increases our faith for the next time we need it. The more we use our muscles, the more they grow—and our faith is the same way.”

“Answer me two more questions,’ said the King. ‘The first is, Why did the earth bear such grain then and has ceased to do so now? And the second is, Why your grandson walks with two crutches, your son with one, and you yourself with none? Your eyes are bright, your teeth sound, and your speech clear and pleasant to the ear. How have these things come about?’ And the old man answered: ‘These things are so, because men have ceased to live by their own labour, and have taken to depending on the labour of others. In the old time, men lived according to God’s law. They had what was their own, and coveted not what others had produced.”

“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.”

“We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief. Nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate."

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power. … But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. (“A National Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer.” Proclamation March 30, 1863)”

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

“I had learned, from years of experience with men, that when a man really desires a thing so deeply that he is willing to stake his entire future on a single turn of the wheel in order to get it, he is sure to win.”

“Trust in Him When we trust in ourselves, it leads to strife and shows that we don’t trust God to do what He says in His Word—be with us, deliver us, and honor us. When we trust God, however, it leads to the reward of peace—peace within ourselves, peace with God, and peace with others.”

“Christlikeness is not produced by imitation, but by inhabitation.”

“Nothing will change permanently until you dig down to the bedrock of truth about your life and God’s purpose for it.”

“Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better’