The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Segregation is on its deathbed—the question now is, how costly will the segregationists make the funeral?

We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negroes’ great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ “Councilor” or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice.

Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.