Nonviolence is really tough. You don't practice nonviolence at conferences; you practice it on picket-lines.

People who have lost their hunger for justice are not ultimately powerful. They are like sick people who have lost their appetite for what is truly nourishing. Such sick people should not frighten or discourage us. They should be prayed for along with the sick people who are in the hospital. "The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature."

When you have people together who believe in something very strongly - whether it's religion or politics or unions - things happen.

It takes a lot of punishment to be able to do anything to change the social order.

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.

Talk is cheap...It is the way we organize and use our lives everyday that tells what we believe in.

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.