I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable

My uncertainty disappeared. Segregation is evil, and I cannot, as a minister, condone evil.

Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

O America, how you've taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.

When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.

We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.