Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.
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A time comes when silence is betrayal.
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Our lives are not fully lived if we're not willing to die for those we love, for what we believe.
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I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled.
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We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
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If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, "There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.
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If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
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There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.
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Alienation is a form of living death. It is the acid of despair that dissolves society.
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In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
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We must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.
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Power is the ability to achieve purpose.
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We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
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Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
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Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
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If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
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I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
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I am not afraid of the word tension.
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No man (sic) has learned to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Length without breadth is like a self-contained tributary having no outward flow to the ocean. Stagnant, still and stale, it lacks both life and freshness. In order to live creatively and meaningfully, our self-concern must be wedded to other concerns.
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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
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Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method...is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community...Yes , love-which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies-is the solution.
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Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
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It's not burn baby burn, but learn, baby, learn, so that you can earn, baby, earn.
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Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.