I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Nonviolence means voiding not only external physical violece but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
I know that you are asking today, 'How long will it take?' I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow. How long? Not long. Because the arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Man’s inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad, it is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good.
What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love...I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go.
Everyone has the power for greatness, because greatness is determined by service.
The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspires men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. It can make men so I-centered that they no longer are Thou-centered. Are we not too prone to judge success by the index of our salaries and the size of the wheel base on our automobiles, and not by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity? Capitalism may lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the theoretical materialism taught by Communism.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.
Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and yet is not concerned with the economic and social conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is the kind the Marxist describes as 'an opiate of the people.'