Now, I'm not talking about a sentimental, shallow kind of love. I'm not talking about eros, which is a sort of aesthetic, romantic love. I'm not even… - Martin Luther King Jr.

Lastly, we must also know what Baptism signifies, and why God has ordained just such external sign and ceremony for the Sacrament by which we are first received into the Christian Church. But the act or ceremony is this, that we are sunk under the water, which passes over us, and afterwards are drawn out again. These two parts, to be sunk under the water and drawn out again, signify the power and operation of Baptism, which is nothing else than putting to death the old Adam, and after that the resurrection of the new man, both of which must take place in us all our lives, so that a truly Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, once begun and ever to be continued.

Deep down in our nonviolent creed is the conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they're worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36 years old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right, he's afraid his home will get burned, or he's afraid that he will lose his job, or he's afraid that he will get shot or beat down by state troopers. He may go on and live until he's 80, but he's just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80. And the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. He died...
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
So we're going to stand up right here amid horses. We're going to stand up right here, in Alabama, amid the billy-clubs. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs, if they have them. We're going to stand up amid tear gas! We're going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.