Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want.
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Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
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If you've got nothing worth dying for, you've got nothing worth living for.
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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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When the Negro finds the courage to be free, he faces dogs and guns and clubs and fire hoses totally unafraid, and the white men with those dogs, guns, clubs and fire hoses see that the Negro they have traditionally called "boy" has become a man.
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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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I feel that segregation is totally unchristian, and that it is against everything the Christian religion stands for.
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Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody.
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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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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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Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down." --From My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris.
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There are two types of laws: there are just laws and there are unjust laws... What is the difference between the two?...An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law.
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Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies... for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.
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The idea of a superior or inferior race is a myth that has been completely refuted by anthropological evidence.
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There's another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. [...] For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That's what hate does.
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My place is in the sunlight of opportunity.
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A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.
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I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts him.
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We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word . . . Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide and bloody gladiatorial contests. Finally, they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ.
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But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.
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He who is greatest among you shall be a servant. That's the new definition of greatness. ... By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.
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It all boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.
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I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
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Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.