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.

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all.

Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything Black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionaries and see the synonyms of the word Black. It's always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word White, it's always something pure, high and clean.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.