Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

As a teenager I had never been able to accept the fact of having to go to the back of a bus or sit in the segregated section of a train. The first time I had been seated behind a curtain in a dining car, I felt as if the curtain had been dropped on my selfhood. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, 1958

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. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

But while so many white Americans are unaware of conditions inside the ghetto, there are very few ghetto dwellers who are unaware of the life outside. The television sets bombard them day by day with the opulence of the larger society. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967