My obligation is to do the right thing. The rest is in God's hands.

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.

We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable . . .

If we are going to achieve a real equality, the U.S. will have to adopt a modified form of Socialism.