Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover these precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
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So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!
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Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
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Make your way to death row and speak with the tragic victims of criminality. As they prepare to make their pathetic walk to the electric chair, their hopeless cry is that society will not forgive. Capital punishment is society's final assertion that it will not forgive.
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Something should remind us once more that the great things in this universe are things that we never see.
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In our struggle against racial segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, I came to see at a very early stage that a synthesis of Gandhi's method of nonviolence and the Christian ethic of love is the best weapon available to Negroes for this struggle for freedom and human dignity. It may well be that the Gandhian approach will bring about a solution to the race problem in America. His spirit is a continual reminder to oppressed people that it is possible to resist evil and yet not resort to violence.
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In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.
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The supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.
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Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.
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The spirit of Lincoln still lives; that spirit born of the teachings of the Nazarene, who promised mercy to the merciful, who lifted the lowly, strengthened the weak, ate with publicans, and made the captives free. In the light of this divine example, the doctrines of demagogues shiver in their chaff.
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My soul is too glad and too great to be at heart the enemy of any man.
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The self cannot be self without other selves.
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We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.
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Many people in Harlem never go out of Harlem. I mean they'd never even been downtown. And you can see how this bitterness can accumulate. Here you see people crowded and hovered up in ghettos and slums with no hope.They see no way out.
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There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth paying for; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather be a free pauper than a rich slave. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with the lack of self respect.
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Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you're nobody.
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The Negro has no room to make any substantial compromises because his store of advantages is too small. He must press unrelentingly for quality, integrated education or his whole drive for freedom will be undermined by the absence of a most vital and indispensable element - learning.
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Seeing is not always believing.
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You have very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt.
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We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
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Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been.
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Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.
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Let the Negro march. Let him make pilgrimages to city hall. Let him go on freedom rides. And above all, make an effort to understand why he must do this. For if his frustration and despair are allowed to continue piling up, millions of Negroes will seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies. And this, inevitably, would lead to a frightening racial nightmare.
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Too often an institution serves to bless the majority opinion. Today when too many move to the rhythmic beat of the status quo, whoever would be a Christian must be a nonconformist.