Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
-
The Curse of poverty has no justification in our age...The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.
-
There is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.
-
The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.
-
Rioting is not revolutionary.
-
This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together– black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu– a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.
-
For you will never be what you ought to be until they [your fellow humans] are what they ought to be.
-
The softminded person always wants to freeze the moment and hold life in the gripping yoke of sameness.
-
We need not join the mad rush to purchase an earthly fallout shelter. God is our eternal fallout shelter. From Strength to Love.
-
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
-
The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions.
-
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.
-
The only time people do not like praise is when too much of it is going toward someone else.
-
If you haven't found something worth dying for, you're not fit to live.
-
The truth may hurt, but love helps ease the pain.
-
Lord help me to see M. L. King as M. L. King in his true perspective.
-
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.
-
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 mankind.
-
It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people.
-
There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, 'This isn't the way.'
-
Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.
-
School takes 13 years, because that is how long it takes to break a child's spirit.
-
History has thrust something upon me from which I cannot turn away.
-
If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, Maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. ... But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.
-
I would rather be a man of conviction than a man of conformity.