Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly.
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I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
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I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity.
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There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.
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The government can't make people love me, but it can keep them from lynching me.
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Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
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America, you must be born again!
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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've told the kids in the ghettos that violence won't solve their problems, but then they ask me, and rightly so; "Why does the government use massive doses of violence to bring about the change it wants in the world?" After this I knew that I could no longer speak against the violence in the ghettos without also speaking against the violence of my government.
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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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We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society.
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I think a revolution can survive without single centralized leadership.
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Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
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We must face the appalling fact that we have been betrayed by both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
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Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? - "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
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Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.
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Even when the polls are open to all, Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges. There must be a concerted effort on the part of Negro leaders to arouse their people from their apathetic indifference.... In the past, apathy was a moral failure. Today, it is a form of moral and political suicide.
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We must substitute courage for caution.
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We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.
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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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Liberalism provided me with an intellectual satisfaction that I never found in fundamentalism. I became so enamored of the insights of liberalism that I almost fell into the trap of accepting uncritically everything it encompassed.
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And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.
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I was in the kitchen drinking coffee when I heard Coretta cry, "Martin, Martin, come quickly!" I put down my cup and ran toward the living room. As I approached the front window Coretta pointed joyfully to a slowly moving bus: "Darling, it's empty!
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White man and black man, jew and gentile, protestant and catholic, will be able to hold hands and sing in the words of the ancient negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty! We are free at last!"