Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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In his essay 'Self-Reliance' Emerson wrote, 'Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.' The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave.
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Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.
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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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Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.
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Within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals.
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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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When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, it loses its social perspective.... There is something about a war like this that makes people insensitive. It dulls the conscience. It strengthens the forces of reaction, and it brings into being bitterness and hatred and violence.
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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.
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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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Courage faces fear and thereby masters it. Cowardice represses fear and is thereby mastered by it.
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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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Even if I were certain that the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree this very day.
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In the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Rioting is not revolutionary.
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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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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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Lord help me to see M. L. King as M. L. King in his true perspective.
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It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.
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The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.
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Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.