The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more that three centuries American Negroes have been frustrated by day and bewilderment by night by unbearable injustice, and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.

The idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence.

Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.

I think if we, say, if all of the major leaders in this struggle [for human's rights] were at, at war with each other, then I think it would be very difficult to make this social revolution the kind of powerful revolution that it's proved to be.

We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be.