Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Love is basic for the very survival of mankind. I'm convinced that love is the only absolute ultimately; love is the highest good. He who loves has somehow discovered the meaning of ultimate reality. He who hates does not know God; he who hates has no knowledge of God. Love is the supreme unifying principle of life.
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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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This Revolution is genuine because it was born from the same womb that always gives birth to massive social upheavals - the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations.
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We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
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The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community. A boycott is never an end within itself. It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.
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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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Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.
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Our children need our presence, not our presents.
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The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.
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The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
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If the Negro is to achieve the goal of integration, he must organize himself into a militant and nonviolent mass movement.
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We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers .
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Loving Your Enemies... Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this demand is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes it is love that will save our world and civilization; love even for our enemies.
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Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.
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The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.
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Whatever my doubts, however heavy the burden, I feel that I must accept the task of helping to make this nation and this world a better place to live in - for all men, black and white alike.
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I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
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If you want to be important-wonderful. If you want to be recognized-wonderful. If you want to be great-wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.
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Nothing degrades a man do more than the allowed stoop so low as to hate someone.
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The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
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Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
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Every man is somebody because he is a child of God.
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Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
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We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."