True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

It is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of high maturity, to rise to the level of self-criticism.

The contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo.

The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.

We must have the faith that things will work out somehow, that God will make a way for us when there seems no way.

I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.