Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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And violence is impractical, because the old eye for an eye philosophy ends up leaving everybody blind .. It is immoral because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for everybody. Means and ends are inseparable. The means represent the ideal in the making; in the long run of history destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.
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Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.
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Nothing is so much needed as a secure family life for a people seeking to rise out of poverty and backwardness.
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Black Power is a nihilistic philosophy born out of the conviction that the Negro can't win... the view that American society is so hopelessly corrupt and enmeshed in evil that there is no possibility of salvation from within.
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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 have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream.
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My faith in man is, at bottom, a faith in God.
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Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.
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We may win a battle, but if in doing so we have planted thousands of seeds of hatred and fear..the war is not over- only the present conflict has ceased. There will be no peace as long as we react to violence with violence.
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Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
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I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.
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I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.
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The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
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Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. [...] You only need a heart full of grace.
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Each one of us has the power to make others feel better or worse. Making others feel better is much more fun than making others feel worse. Making others feel better generally makes us feel better.
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Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.
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One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.
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A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
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Vanity asks, is it popular? Politics ask, will it work? But conscience and morality ask, is it right?
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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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We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. . . . Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, 'Too late.' ... 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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When we rise in the morning... at the table we drink coffee which is provided to us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African; before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world.
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Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.
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Don't let anybody take your manhood.