Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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I know that God is not going to willfully hurt us. Why there is suffering is the business of the Lord, but He never seems to give us more than we can bear.
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One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust ... is in reality expressing the highest respect for law ... We will not obey your evil laws.
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We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.
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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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The Negroes of America had taken the President, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.
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I'm concerned about a better world. I'm concerned about justice; I'm concerned about brotherhood; I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.
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If a man hasn't found anything worth dying for, he hasn't anything worth living for.
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We can never travel beyond the arms of the Divine.
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No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.
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Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, 'Love your enemies.' It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals.
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Be true to what you said on paper.
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There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion.
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Why is the church always a taillight rather than a headlight?
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It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.
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But I say to you, my friends, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize.
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You only need a heart full of grace.
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I still have a dream today that one day war will come to an end, that men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, that nations will no longer rise up against nations, neither will they study war any more.
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An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.
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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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When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
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We all can't be famous but we can all be great and we become great when we serve others.
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The greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.
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And see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky.
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One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong.