Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.
We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.
Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.
It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
To other countries, I may go as a tourist, but to India, I come as a pilgrim.
I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
We must use time creatively.
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
