Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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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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I plan to stand by nonviolence, because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, and with my own self.
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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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I think a revolution can survive without single centralized leadership.
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Nonviolence is the most potent technique for oppressed people. Unearned suffering is redemptive.
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We ain't goin' study war no more.
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It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
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Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.
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We can walk through the darkest night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for the good.
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There is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.
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Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the instruments of love.
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I have a dream! To be free at last! Free at last! Free at last. And if a man has nothing to die for, Then his life is worth nothing.
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I firmly believe that the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent resistance is the only logical and moral approach to the solution of the race problem in the United States.
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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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It's not how long a man lives, but how well he uses the time allotted him.
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If you haven't found something worth dying for, you're not fit to live.
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A world war - God forbid! - will leave only smoldering ashes as a mute testimony of a human race whose folly led inexorably to untimely death. Yet there are those who sincerely feel that disarmament is an evil and international negotiation is an abominable waste of time.
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I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.
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Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.
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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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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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A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and everytime you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over – balance the bad points.
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Any nation or government that deprives an individual of freedom is in that moment committing an act of moral and spiritual murder. Any individual who is not concerned about his freedom commits an act of moral and spiritual suicide.
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The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.