Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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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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I often feel like saying, when I hear the question 'People aren't ready,' that it's like telling a person who is trying to swim, 'Don't jump in that water until you learn how to swim.' When actually you will never learn how to swim until you get in the water. And I think people have to have an opportunity to develop themselves and govern themselves.
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I’ve been to the Mountaintop.
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Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual.
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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.
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My faith in man is, at bottom, a faith in God.
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A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I'm saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"
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Money, like any other force such as electricity, is amoral and can be used for either good or evil.
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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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The early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles o popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.
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The Negro is the child of two cultures - Africa and America. The problem is that in the search for wholeness all too many Negroes seek to embrace only one side of their natures.
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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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Whom you would change, you must first love.
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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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God has given each normal person a capacity to achieve some end. True, some are endowed with more talent than others, but God has left none of us talentless.
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The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.
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I would rather be a man of conviction than a man of conformity.
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I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.
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Without love, there is no reason to know anyone, for love will in the end connect us to our neighbors, our children and our hearts.
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Rioting is not revolutionary.
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The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions.
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Wherever schools can be integrated through the busing method, and where it won't be just a, a terrible inconvenience, I think it ought to be done.
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Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.
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One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.