Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
-
America must begin the struggle for democracy at home. The advocacy of free elections in Europe by American officials is hypocrisy when free elections are not held in great sections of America.
-
We must substitute courage for caution.
-
Our goal is to create a beloved community," said Dr. King, "and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
-
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.
-
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
-
The ability to lead a happy life is made, not found.
-
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped.
-
Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
-
[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.
-
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.
-
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
-
In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
-
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.
-
If our economic system is to survive, there has to be a better distribution of wealth ... we can't have a system where some people live in superfluous, inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty.
-
True sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.
-
Voting is the foundation stone for political action.
-
Be an artist at whatever you do. Even if you are a street sweeper, be the Michelangelo of street sweepers.
-
The question is no longer between violence and non-violence it is between non-violence and non-existence.
-
If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable.
-
If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values - that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
-
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
-
Education without social action is a one-sided value because it has no true power potential.
-
To have peace in the world, men & nations must embrace the nonviolent assertion that ends and means must cohere.
-
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.