Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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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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The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing.
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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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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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I'm thinking of love in action and not something where you say, "Love your enemies," and just leave it at that, but you love your enemies to the point that you're willing to sit-in at a lunch counter in order to help them find themselves. You're willing to go to jail.
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Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.
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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.
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Love is the most durable power in the world. This creative force is the most potent instrument available in mankind's quest for peace and security.
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To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish.
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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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In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.
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A second basic fact that characterizes nonviolence is that it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.
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It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
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Slaves do not always welcome their deliverers. They become accustomed to being slaves. They would rather gear those ills they have.
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I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction... I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow... I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed.
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The hope of the world is still in dedicated minorities. The trail-blazers in human, scientific and religious freedom have always been in a minority.
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We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.
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War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
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The purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.
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There is nothing more tragic in all the world than to know right and not to do it.
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The ultimate solution to the race problem lies in the willingness of men to obey the unenforceable.
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I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.
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There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest.
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Worship is as natural to the human family as the sing of the sun is to the cosmic order.