Quote (Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

So if you're seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means are really unimportant; any means that will get you there  - they may be violent, they may be untruthful means, they may even be unjust means to a just end.  There have been those who have argued this throughout history.  But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  "A Christmas Sermon on Peace." In The Lost Massey Lectures,

ed. CBC Massey Lecture Series.  (Scarborough: House of Anansi Press, 2007), 212.