Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.
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Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. Every now and then I ask myself, 'What is it that I would want said?' I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
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We need not join the mad rush to purchase an earthly fallout shelter. God is our eternal fallout shelter. From Strength to Love.
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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 have a dream today!
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In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man.
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Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual.
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I do think there must be centralized leadership in the sense that, say, in our struggle all of the leaders coordinate their efforts, cooperate and, and at least evince a degree of unity.
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The softminded person always wants to freeze the moment and hold life in the gripping yoke of sameness.
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Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality.
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Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems.
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Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.
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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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But alas! Science cannot now rescue us, for even the scientist is lost in the terrible midnight of our age. Indeed, science gave us the very instruments that threaten to bring universal suicide.
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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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We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.
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A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters. To lightly dismiss a success because it does not usher in a complete order of justice is to fail to comprehend the process of achieving full victory.
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There are always those who say legislation can't solve the problem. There is a half-truth involved here. It is true that legislation cannot solve the whole problem. It can solve some of the problem. It may be true that morality can't be legislated, but behavior can be regulated.
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The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions.
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A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies.
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If a man has not discovered anything so dying is not worth living.
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We ain't goin' study war no more.
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Whom you would change, you must first love.
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Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.