Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.

I had a very depressing response because I realized that these were my own people, these were Negroes throwing eggs at me. I'm concerned about the fact that maybe all of us have contributed to this by not working harder to get rid of the conditions, the poverty, the social isolation, and all of the conditions that cause individuals to respond like this.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

... the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.

America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.