“I have a dream this afternoon that the brotherhood of man will become a reality in this day.
And with this faith I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope through the mountain of despair. With this faith, I will go out with you and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.”

1960s, Discerning the Signs of History (1964)
Context: I'm tellin' yuh this morning, money can't save yuh. A beautiful home can't save yuh. Beautiful automobiles can't save yuh. It's God that will save us in the final analysis. And I say to this morning that history is teaching us a lesson. And I hope that we will see it. That there must be underneath all of our wills, underneath all of our material attainment, a moral and religious undergirding that will help us to know that God is our father. That he made us and that we are dependent on Him, and Him only, and when we see that, we have something. For we can arise from the fatigue of despair to the bouyancy of hope.
Dark yesterday can be transformed into bright tomorrow. When you know God, you can stand up amid the agonies and burdens of life and not despair. When you know God, you can stand up amid tension and tribulation and yet smile in the process. When you know God, you go on livin' anyhow. Nothin's gonna stop you 'cause you know that God is watching in your heart. When you know God, you have on some shoes that can help you walk through any muddy place. When you know God, you know that He is over everything. That [he]'s a rock in a weary land, that he is a shelter in the time of a storm. … When you know God, you can live and never die. We're gonna open the doors of the church, now, somebody here needs to accept the Christ. Somebody needs to come this morning. Discerning the signs of history. And as we sing who this morning will make that step. Remain true to the faith of our fathers. Somebody needs to decide Now. Who will come. When we sing will you make that step.

1960s, (1963)
Source: I Have A Dream

King's often repeated expression that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice" was his own succinct summation of sentiments echoing those of Theodore Parker, who, in "Of Justice and the Conscience" (1853) asserted: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."
1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Context: I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. … When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

As quoted in The Great Quotations (1960) by George Seldes, p. 864

Rush Lyrics

Larry King Live television program (September 9, 2005)
2007, 2008

The Better Part (1901)
Context: I believe that brutality tends to defeat itself. Prizefighters die young, gourmands get the gout, hate hurts worse the man who nurses it, and all selfishness robs the mind of its divine insight, and cheats the soul that would know. Mind alone is eternal. He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps. My faith is great: out of the transient darkness of the present the shadows will flee away, and Day will yet dawn. I am an Anarchist.