Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
-
[I]t must be emphasized that nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist. If one uses this method because he is afraid or merely because he lacks the instruments of violence, he is not truly nonviolent. This is why Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight.
-
As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.
-
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
-
The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life.
-
To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
-
And I say to you, I have decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. For I have seen too much hate... every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love.
-
One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
-
I think one can live in American society with a certain cultural heritage, whether it's an African heritage or other, European,what have you, and still absorb a great deal of this culture. There is always cultural assimilation.
-
Oh, the worst of all tragedies is not to die young, but to live until I am seventy five and yet not ever truly to have lived.
-
The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.
-
If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.
-
History will have to record That the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition Was not the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people But the appalling silence and indifference of the good. Our generation will have to repent not Only for the words and actions of the children of darkness But also for the fears and apathy of thechildren of light.
-
We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage.
-
Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.
-
The conservatives who say, "Let us not move so fast," and the extremists who say, "Let us go out and whip the world ," would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing; for they do not reach the people who have a crying need to be free.
-
Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.
-
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
-
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
-
Don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.
-
Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored... I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, and there is a type of constructive tension that is necessary for growth.
-
Jesus is not an impractical idealist; he is the practical realist.
-
Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.
-
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.
-
The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites.