Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
-
Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.
-
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies.
-
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.
-
We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war.
-
Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace.
-
We must shift the arms race into a 'peace race'.
-
I think in this phase, after the Negro emerges in and from the desegregated society, then a great deal of time must be spent in improving standards which lag behind to a large extent because of segregation,discrimination, and the legacy of slavery.
-
Today, is a great day to make a difference for someone. 'I have a dream'.
-
Every man is somebody because he is a child of God.
-
From my Christian formation've gotten my ideals and technique Gandhi action.
-
All life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother's keeper because we are our brother's brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
-
They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today-my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
-
I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.
-
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
-
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
-
Too unconcerned to love and too passionless to hate, too detached to be selfish and too lifeless to be unselfish, too indifferent to experience joy and too cold to express sorrow, they are neither dead nor alive; they merely exist.
-
Brutality was imprisoned in a lumious glare revealing the naked truth to the whole world.
-
We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and for justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
-
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.
-
In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of reality.
-
A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.
-
The white poor also suffer deprivation and the humiliation of poverty if not of color. They are chained by the weight of discrimination though its badge of degradation does not mark them. It corrupts their lives, frustrates their opportunities and withers their education. In one sense it is more evil for them because it has confused so many by prejudice that they have supported their own oppressors.
-
Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.
-
The decision we must make now is whether we will give our allegiance to outmoded and unjust customs or to the ethical demands of the universe. As Christians we owe our allegiance to God and His will, rather than to man and his folkways.