Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever recurring song of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever rising tides of revenge. Man has never risen above the injunction of the lex talionis: "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.
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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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The truth may hurt, but love helps ease the pain.
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The Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest.
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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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Rioting is not revolutionary.
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I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.
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For all of us today, the battle is in our hands. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways to lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We must keep going.
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Capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. 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 humanity-thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.
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There is nothing more tragic in all the world than to know right and not to do it.
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Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? - "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
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Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.
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One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everbody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody's business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace.
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Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater. [...] when you start hating anybody, it destroys the very center of your creative response to life and the universe; so love everybody.
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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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From my Christian formation've gotten my ideals and technique Gandhi action.
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I question and soul-search constantly into myself to be as certain as I can that I am fulfilling the true meaning of my work, that I am maintaining my sense of purpose, that I am holding fast to my ideals, that I am guiding my people in the right direction.
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Lord help me to see M. L. King as M. L. King in his true perspective.
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Courage faces fear and thereby masters it. Cowardice represses fear and is thereby mastered by it.
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I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.
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Even when the polls are open to all, Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges. There must be a concerted effort on the part of Negro leaders to arouse their people from their apathetic indifference.... In the past, apathy was a moral failure. Today, it is a form of moral and political suicide.
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We ain't goin' study war no more.
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If a man has not discovered anything so dying is not worth living.
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Even if I were certain that the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree this very day.