Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace.
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We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.
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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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We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.
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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.
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There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, 'This isn't the way.'
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I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and the root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems we face as a race.
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This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
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Nonviolence is the most potent technique for oppressed people. Unearned suffering is redemptive.
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Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free.
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And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don't just set out to do a good job.
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The great majority of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it.
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We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war.
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I think a revolution can survive without single centralized leadership.
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So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
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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.
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My friends, all I'm trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we've got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we've left behind. That's the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of this world what God wants it to be and the real purpose and meaning of it.
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Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.
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We must shift the arms race into a 'peace race'.
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I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
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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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I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
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Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
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A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.