If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger.
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.
It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.
There are those who say to you - we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.
We are in danger of making our cities places where business goes on but where life, in its real sense, is lost.
