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

Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism.

We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.