In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence.

The only ones who make things change are fanatics. If you're not a fanatic around here, you can't cut it.

"The life of the union depends upon more people getting to share the limelight, because with the limelight also comes responsibility and with the responsibility comes a little sharing of the load." "There isn't enough money to organize poor people. There never is enough money to organize anyone. If you put it on the basis of money, you're not going to succeed."

In the no-nonsense school of adversity, which we did not choose for ourselves, we are learning how to operate a labor union.

The name of the game is to talk to people. If you don't talk to people, you can't get started...You knock on twenty doors or so, and twenty guys tell you to go to hell, or that they haven't got time. But maybe at the fortieth or sixtieth house you find the one guy who is all you need. You're not going to organize everything; you're just going to get it started.

If you're not frightened that you might fail, you'll never do the job. If you're frightened, you'll work like crazy.

There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance.