Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.
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If you've got nothing worth dying for, you've got nothing worth living for.
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The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.
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Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
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Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
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The movement for equality and justice can only be a success if it has both a mass and militant character; the barriers to be overcome require both.
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A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.
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Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all.
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Some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
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I have condemned any organizer of war, regardless of his rank or nationality.
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A good many observers have remarked that if equality could come at once, the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white American is even more unprepared.
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Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
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We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters.
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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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Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
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If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets as Raphael painted pictures, sweep streets as Michelangelo carved marble, sweep streets as Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
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Time has been used destructively by people of ill will much more than it has been used constructively by those of good will.
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Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.
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We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
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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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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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It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends 500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only 53 annually on the victims of poverty.
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True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
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There is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.