The words 'bad timing' came to be ghosts haunting our every move in Birmingham. Yet people who used this argument were ignorant of the background of our planning...they did not realize that it was ridiculous to speak of timing when the clock of history showed that the Negro had already suffered one hundred years of delay.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people seeking to rise out of poverty and backwardness.

Seeing is not always believing.

We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights.