“And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls "the image of God," you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude. Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.”

“Prayer is the rope that pulls God and man together. But, it doesn’t pull God down to us: It pulls us up to Him.

“Trust, but verify.”

“The subject of heaven is much easier to accept than the subject of hell. And yet the Bible teaches both.”

“Totalitarianism always starts with restrictions on the rights of others. We must avoid this at all costs. George Washington even said, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

“out from under it. “We never do anything well 'til we cease to think about the manner of doing it.” —William Hazlitt”

“It has actually become very necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious friendship is really homosexual.”

“the cause of the depression is traceable directly to the worldwide habit of trying to reap without sowing.”

“Thinking for a Change shares the way that I think on a daily basis. My wife, Margaret, says it has more of my DNA than any of my other books.”

“The entire world is in turmoil. We are living in a time of enormous conflict and cultural transformation. We have been stunned by shockwaves of change in nation after nation, all around the globe.”

“Since crime often grows out of a sense of futility and despair, Negro parents must be urged to give their children the love, attention, and sense of belonging that a segregated society deprives them of.”

“One if the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”

“We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives.”

“One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And what is there? Who is there?--there beyond that field, that tree, that roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such excitedly animated and healthy men.”

“The earth has everything for all human needs, but nothing for his greed.”