I may not get there with you, but I believe that we as a people will someday reach the promised land.

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.

Hate is just as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This is why the psychiatrists say, "Love or perish." Hate is too great a burden to bear.

To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish.

[nonviolence] seeks to secure moral ends through moral means.

We must follow nonviolence and love.

I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.