Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
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Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
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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.
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But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
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I have a dream! To be free at last! Free at last! Free at last. And if a man has nothing to die for, Then his life is worth nothing.
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Resistance and nonviolence are not in themselves good. There is another element that must be present in our struggle that then makes our resistance and nonviolence truly meaningful. That element is reconciliation. Our ultimate end must be the creation of the beloved community
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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.
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I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.
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Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve.
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It is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of high maturity, to rise to the level of self-criticism.
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If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.
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When we rise in the morning... at the table we drink coffee which is provided to us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African; before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world.
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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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There is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.
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Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people seeking to rise out of poverty and backwardness.
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We in the West must bear in mind that the poor countries are poor primarily because we have exploited them through political or economic colonialism.
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Let us therefore continue our triumphal march to the realization of the American dream... for all of us today, the battle is in our hands... The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions... We are still in for the season of suffering... How long? Not long. Because no lie can live forever... our God is marching on.
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To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish.
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In spite of its glowing talk about the welfare of the masses, Communism's methods and philosophy strip man of his dignity and worth, leaving him as little more than a depersonalized cog in the ever-turning wheel of the state.
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The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.
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Vanity asks, is it popular? Politics ask, will it work? But conscience and morality ask, is it right?
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There is no sound more powerful than the marching feet of a determined people.
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In some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
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I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.