So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?

If you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl, but keep moving forward!

I would be misleading you if I made you feel that we could win a violent campaign. It's impractical even to think about it. The minute we start, we will end up getting many more people killed unnecessarily. Now, I'm ready to die myself. Many other committed people are ready to die. If you believe in something firmly, if you believe in it truly, if you believe it in your heart, you are willing to die for it, but I'm not going to advocate a method that brings about unnecessary death.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends 500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only 53 annually on the victims of poverty.

My soul is too glad and too great to be at heart the enemy of any man