Martin Luther King Jr.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong you cannot be too conservative."

"The purpose of our lives is to be happy and to make a positive difference."

"The time is always right to do what is right."

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

"Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the struggle for equality and justice."

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

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

"Darkness cannot survive where there is light, just as hate cannot survive where love is present."

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle."

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable; every step toward progress requires sacrifice."

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

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music."

"The quality of a person's life is determined by the quality of the questions they ask themselves."

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."

"I have come to believe that nonviolence is more powerful than violence."

"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

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

"The greatest tragedy is not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"Somebody must go out and say, 'Love is like an oasis in the desert of life.'"

"I am convinced that we still have time to avert catastrophe if we make the right choices now."

"True peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—violence, war, evil—but it is the presence of some positive force: justice, goodwill, and brotherhood."

"The function of education is to teach one to think soundly and to act nobly."

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

"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."

"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."

"If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way."

"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."

"The shape of the world today is the result of a series of choices made by men and women, and we are now making similar choices."