I was the seventh of nine children. When you come from that far down you have to struggle to survive.

The future is not a gift: it is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.

But history will judge you, and as the years pass, you will ultimately judge yourself, in the extent to which you have used your gifts and talents to lighten and enrich the lives of your fellow men. In your hands lies the future of your world and the fulfillment of the best qualities of your own spirit.

Punishment is not prevention. History offers cold comfort to those who think grievance and despair can be subdued by force.

If you never quit, youll never fail.

But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?