Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody. Not a few men who cherish lofty and noble ideals hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different.
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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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And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
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Unless you have found something in life to live for that is more important to you than your own life, you will always be a slave. For all another man needs to do is threaten to take your life to get you to do his bidding.
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The law of "An eye for an eye" will eventually leave everyone blind.
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Mankind's survival is dependent on man's ability to solve the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these problems is in turn dependent upon man's squaring his moral progress with his scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony.
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Is your heart right? If your heart isn't right, fix it up today.
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We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
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There is a magnificent new militancy within the Negro community all across this nation. And I welcome this as a marvelous development. The Negro of America is saying he's determined to be free and he is militant enough to stand up.
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One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right if the head is totally wrong. Only through the bringing together of head and heart-intelligence and goodness-shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature.
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[nonviolence] seeks to secure moral ends through moral means.
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Love is a usually force able of transforming an rivalry into friend.
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Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
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I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic.
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Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives.
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Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.
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Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter - but beautiful - struggle for a new world.
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In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self.
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What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?
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We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights.
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Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.
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Brutality was imprisoned in a lumious glare revealing the naked truth to the whole world.
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Voting is the foundation stone for political action.
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We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind... The time is always right to do the right thing. Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.