Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
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Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come.
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Jesus recognized that love is greater than like.
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In this Revolution, no plans have been written for retreat. Those who will not get into step will find that the parade has passed them by.
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The ability to lead a happy life is made, not found.
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It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless.
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The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind.
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My obligation is to do the right thing. The rest is in God's hands.
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Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
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Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
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I decide on the basis of conscience. A genuine leader doesn't reflect consensus, he molds consensus.
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I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we are moving against wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who has love has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.
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Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.
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Our children need our presence, not our presents.
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What affects one in a major way, affects all in a minor way.
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Even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom.
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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.
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To have peace in the world, men & nations must embrace the nonviolent assertion that ends and means must cohere.
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Just as it is the duty of all men to obey just laws, so it is the duty of all men to disobey unjust laws.
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The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the "back to nature" optimism of Rousseau, and the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.
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On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.
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Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
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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.
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Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity.