Martin Luther King Jr.

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

"You may not be able to leave your children a great inheritance, but you leave them an inspiring ideal to follow."

"We are called to be the conscience of our nation."

"All labor has dignity."

"The good news is that injustice can be overcome."

"We live in a time of moral and spiritual crisis."

"The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it."

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"If you can't fly, then run; if you can't run, then walk; if you can't walk, then crawl; but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

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

"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be."

"I believe that what self-centered man has torn down, other-centered man can build up."

"Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of people willing to work."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history."

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically."

"Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education."

"A man who won't die for something is not fit to live."

"Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase."

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed."

"Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time."

"When you are right you cannot be too bold; when you are wrong you cannot be too humble."