Perhaps only his sense of humor and irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation in the world speaking of his aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores. – Martin Luther King,Jr., about Ho Chi Minh, Beyond Vietnam lecture, 4 April 1968

But alas! Science cannot now rescue us, for even the scientist is lost in the terrible midnight of our age. Indeed, science gave us the very instruments that threaten to bring universal suicide. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

If… the machine of government… is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. – Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime. – Martin Luther King,Jr., March 22, 1956