We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

 As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars.

As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at Mayo Clinic.

I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made.

No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.

When I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.

Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.

We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

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.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity-thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.

A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.

The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. […] The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.

The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind.

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age.

Voting is the foundation stone for political action.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.

The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

There are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws… What is the difference between the two?…An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure.

Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.

In a real sense faith is total surrender to God.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.

Evil can be cast out, not by man alone nor by a dictatorial God who invades our lives, but when we open the door and invite God through Christ to enter.

When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

Like the ever-changin cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of the summers and the piercing chill of its winters.

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

My faith in man is, at bottom, a faith in God.

In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men

This often misunderstood and misinterpreted concept has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.

There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a large segment of people in that society who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that that have nothing to lose. People who have stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don’t have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.

Make a career of humanity… It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man… You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.

Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.