Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.

Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution.

Surely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.

People may find it more comfortable to listen to us if we equivocate, but in the long run only words that discomfort them are going to change our situation.

most Americans are in deep awe of things-as-they-are. Even with everything this obviously out of control, they still tell themselves that those in authority must know what they are doing, and must be describing our condition to us as it really is; they still take it for granted that somehow what is, what is done, must make sense, can't really be insane. These assumptions exercise a tyranny over their minds.

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.

We believe, in fact, that the one act of respect has little force unless matched by the other - in balance with it... The acting out of that dual respect I would name as precisely the source of our power.