For one to control one's thoughts and feelings means one can actually control one's atmosphere and all who walk into its sphere of influence.

If I go home and someone, and my child has blood running down her leg and someone tells me that a snake bit her, I'm going out and kill the snake. And when I find the snake, I'm not going to look and see if he has blood on his jaws.

We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.

That's not a chip on my shoulder, that's your foot on my neck.

[The man] thinks he's being condemned because of his color but actually he's being condemned because of his deeds, his conscious behavior.

The prison systems in this country actually are exploitative and they are not in any way rehabilitative.

I think that the problem of the American negro goes beyond the principle of any organization whether it's a religious, political, or otherwise.