Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world.
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The church must be reminded that it is not the master, or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.
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O America, how you've taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.
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Mass civil disobedience can use rage as a constructive and creative force.
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By...our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim; by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing...we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.
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There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminates even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good.
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We as Christians have a mandate to be nonconformists.
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What good does it do to sit at the counter when you cannot afford a hamburger?
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You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of the slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.
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We cannot walk alone.
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We must have our freedom now. We must have the right to vote. We must have equal protection of the law.
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There is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth.
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In order to be true to one's conscience and true to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system.
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I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
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Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
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Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.
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We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
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Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live - men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization - because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.
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In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law . . That would lead to anarchy.
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The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
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The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible.
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The Negro's problem will not be solved by running away.
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Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
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With all of its false assumptions and evil methods, communism grew as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. Communism in theory emphasized a classless society, and a concern for social justice, though the world knows from sad experience that in practice it created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice.