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

The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Nobel Prize lecture, 11 December 1968

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