“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”

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.

It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.

There is no gain without struggle.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

A lie cannot live.

We must use time creatively – and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.

I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

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

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

There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.

Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.

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 real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

No country is free unless it is democratic.

The building of America has had its fair share of mistakes, but it’s a constitution that’s the jewel of democracy, the envy of many, and it’s the most generous nation in the world.

I hope the two wings of the Democratic Party may flap together.

The intolerant man will not rely on persuasion, or on the worth of the idea. He would deny to others the very freedom of opinion or of dissent which he so stridently demands for himself. He cannot trust democracy.

I took my grandmother to the emergency room. The doctor said that she was on an artificial life support system, and that although her brain was dead her heart was still beating. I though, “we’ve never had a democrat in the family before”.

The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man.

The motive power of democracy is love.