The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.

When Negroes looked for the second phase, the realization of equality, they found that many of their white allies had quietly disappeared.... To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.

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

Whatever effects one directly, effects all indirectly.

One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.