He who is greatest among you shall be a servant. That's the new definition of greatness. ... By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.

But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

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

The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

The movement for equality and justice can only be a success if it has both a mass and militant character; the barriers to be overcome require both.

To be Negro in America is to hope against hope.