“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.”

“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.”

“Tell them how much you appreciate them.”

“Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.”

“I must confess that here I had to compromise the principle of giving no commission, which in Bombay I had so scrupulously observed. I was told that conditions in the two cases were different; that whilst in Bombay commissions had to be paid to touts, here they had to be paid to vakils who briefed you; and that here as in Bombay all barristers, without exception, paid a percentage of their fees as commission.”

“You are your own cannoe and you are your own paddle, so paddle your own cannoe. Society had taught us to give away our power and abilities by making us to believe that other people are responsible for our success and failure. That is not fair!”

“Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.”

“No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

“The average man,” explained the late Dr. Ernst Jokl, “loses fifty percent of his muscle mass between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five.”

“Don’t try to prove to everybody that the reason why you can’t is that nobody could. It’s no excuse. You can break the tradition by being the first person to make it happen!”

“The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at the moment of some crisis, through which they are introduced to their ‘other selves’. John Bunyan”

“Man seeks to excuse himself of sin, but God seeks to convict him of it and to save him from it. Sin is no amusing toy—it is a terror to be shunned! Learn, then, what constitutes sin in the eyes of God!”

“It was as if he had come to mistrust words somehow. Words, and the sentiments words carried.”

“My field was God’s earth. Wherever I ploughed, there was my field. Land was free. It was a thing no man called his own. Labor was the only thing men called their own.”

“What I know for sure is that pleasure is energy reciprocated: What you put out comes back. Your base level of pleasure is determined by how you view your whole life.”