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.

Be the best of whatever you are.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.

I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom.

When we rise in the morning... at the table we drink coffee which is provided to us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African; before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world.

The movement for equality and justice can only be a success if it has both a mass and militant character; the barriers to be overcome require both.

Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity.