Something seems wrong to most people engaged in struggle when they see more people hurt on their own side than on the other side. They are used to reading this as an indication of defeat, and a complete mental readjustment is required of them. Within the new terms of struggle, victory has nothing to do with their being able to give more punishment than they take (quite the reverse); victory has nothing to do with their being able to punish the other at all; it has to do simply with being able, finally, to make the other move... Vengeance is not the point; change is.

The free man must be born before freedom can be won, and the brotherly man must be born before full brotherhood can be won. It will come into being only if we build it out of our very muscle and bone - by trying to act it out.

Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.

All prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away.

there is clearly a kind of anger that is healthy. It is the concentration of one's whole being in the determination: this must change.

To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek.

Nonviolent action does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences.