Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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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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I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism.
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I would be the last to condemn the thousands of sincere and dedicated people outside the churches who have labored unselfishly through various humanitarian movements to cure the world of social evils, for I would rather a man be a committed humanist than an uncommitted Christian.
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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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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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You cannot defect form an insight. You cannot unsee what you have seen.
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Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.
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The Universe is on the side of Justice.
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Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.
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White Americans must be made to understand the basic motives underlying Negro demonstrations. Many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations are boiling inside the Negro, and he must release them. It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people's pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released.
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[Malcolm X] had said a great deal about nonviolence, criticizing nonviolence, and saying that I approved of Negro men and women being bitten by dogs and the fire hoses, and I say, say go on and not defend yourself. I think this kind of response grew out of the build up, all of the talk about my being a sort of polished Uncle Tom.
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Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
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There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. [...] The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. [...] To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
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Set yourself earnestly to discover what you are made to do, and then give yourself passionately to the doing of it.
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I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end (purpose) of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.
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I just want to do God’s will.
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The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.
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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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I have come to see more and more that one of the most decisive steps that the Negro can take is that little walk to the voting booth. That is an important step. We've got to gain the ballot, and through that gain, political power.
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We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life's highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished.
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Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.
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Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it.
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We must have the faith that things will work out somehow, that God will make a way for us when there seems no way.
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Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.