Martin Luther King Jr

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

We must constantly build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

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

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

We have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

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

The Negro all over the South must come to the point that he can say to his white brother: "We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force."

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

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