... the constructive power of an image is not measured in terms of its truth, but of the love it inspires.

Our minorities alone are in a position to know what the fathers of our democracy were talking about.

A mechanism of some kind stands between us and almost every act of our lives.

When we lose love, we lose also our identification with the universe and with eternal values--an identification which alone makesit possible for us to lay our lives on the altar for what we believe.

... most Southerners of my parents' era were raised to feel that it wasn't respectable to be rich. We felt that all patriotic Southerners had lost everything in defense of the South, and sufficient time hadn't elapsed for respectable rebuilding of financial security in a war- impoverished region.

... in 1950 a very large slice of the white South stood at the crossroads in its attitude toward its colored citizens and [was] psychologically capable of turning either way.

Serviceis love in action, love "made flesh"; service is the body, the incarnation of love. Love is the impetus, service the act, and creativity the result with many by-products.