If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.

Some men see what is, and ask 'Why?' I see what might be, and ask 'Why Not?'

What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet...

It is immoral to see evil and not act on it.

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change.

Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.