There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.

Though we live in the colony of time, we are ultimately responsible to the empire of eternity.

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

[People] don't see that there's a great deal of a difference between nonresistance to evil and nonviolent resistance.

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.

We had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.