“Authority allows two roles: the torturer and the tortured. Twists people into joyless mannequins that fear and hate, while culture plunges into the abyss.”

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

"Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?", The Los Angles Times, 2001-11-08

This passage contains some phrases King later used in "Where Do We Go From Here?" (1967) which has a section below.
1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)
Context: Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says "love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies-or else? The chain reaction of evil-Hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars-must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Source: The Fresco (2000), Chapter 9, p. 102

on Larry King Live, CNN (April 30, 2007)

Quoted in Glenn Kessler, "Rice Defends Enhanced Interrogations," http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/04/30/rice_defends_enhanced_interrog.html?hpid=news-col-blog Washington Post (2009-04-30).
Context: In terms of the enhanced interrogation and so forth, anything that was legal and was going to make this country safer, the president wanted to do. Nothing that was illegal. And nothing that was going to make the country less safe. Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans. You were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again... We were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture.

Source: Night Watch

"The Ad Hoc Behavioral Laboratory" http://nymag.com/arts/tv/reviews/28108/, New York Magazine (8 February 2007)
Context: Military people have a heavy investment in rules against torture, not only because we want to protect our own POWs from reciprocal brutalities, as a former general counsel for the Department of the Navy explains here, but also because war is so terrible that it desperately requires any limits anyone can agree on, any gesture toward dignity, any mitigation suggesting civilized scruple. There isn’t even persuasive evidence that torture makes its victims tell their secrets, instead of saying whatever we want to hear. From an international leader in the cause of human rights and democratic values, the U. S. has turned into an unaccountable bully.

From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith (July 1925)
Letters