Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
-
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.
-
The road to freedom is a difficult, hard road. It always makes for temporary setbacks.
-
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man.
-
Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.
-
We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter.
-
The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances. But the minute he looks beyond his circumstances and sees the whole of the situation, he discovers that some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality are consecrated white persons.
-
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.
-
If you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl, but keep moving forward!
-
Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" and "Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?"
-
There is no sound more powerful than the marching feet of a determined people.
-
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
-
History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.
-
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism... We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.
-
He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lives a great street-sweeper who did his job well'
-
We must dispel the negative and harmful atmosphere that has been created by avaricious and unprincipled realtors who engage in "blockbusting." If we had in America really serious efforts to break down discrimination in housing, and at the same time a concerted program of government aid to improve housing for Negroes, I think that many white people would be surprised at how many Negroes would choose to live among themselves, exactly as Poles and Jews and other ethnic groups do.
-
At times, life is hard, as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and painful moments. Like the ever flowing water of a river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. Like the ever-changin cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of the summers and the piercing chill of its winters. But through it all, God walks with us. Never forget that God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.
-
Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.
-
There is no easy way to create a world where men and women can live together... But if such a world is created in our lifetime, it will be done by rejecting the racism, materialism, and violence that has characterized Western civilization and especially by working toward a world of brotherhood, cooperation, and peace.
-
If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable.
-
We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not faith but superstition.
-
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
-
The ability to lead a happy life is made, not found.
-
I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
-
The church must be reminded that it is not the master, or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.