Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
-
As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free.
-
Even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in agonizing desperation they cry for the bread of hope.
-
While the question of who killed President Kennedy is important, the question 'what killed him' is more important.
-
Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
-
Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.
-
You see, my friends...you begin to ask the questions, 'Who owns the oil?' You begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the iron ore?' You begin to ask the question, 'Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?'
-
The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind.
-
I just want to leave a committed life behind.
-
Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. [...] You only need a heart full of grace.
-
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come.
-
It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless.
-
The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
-
I never cease to wonder at the amazing presumption of much of white society, assuming that they have the right to bargain with the Negro for his freedom.
-
In the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and, ultimately, destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.
-
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.
-
I may be crucified for my beliefs and, if I am, you can say, "He died to make men free.
-
We come humbly to say to the men in the forefront of our government that the civil rights issue is not an Ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians of the status quo; it is rather an eternal moral issue which may well determine the destiny of our nation in the ideological struggle with communism. The hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now, before it is too late.
-
To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish.
-
You are resisting, but you've come to see that tactically as well as morally, it is better to be nonviolent.If one would, didn't want to deal with the moral questions, it would just be impractical for the Negro to talk about making his struggle a violent one.
-
I'm very glad Christ tells us to love our neighbor and not to like our neighbor because it's hard to like someone threatening your children and throwing fire bombs through your window, but He asks us to love them and that I can do.