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Violence is not only impractical but immoral.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
I think that my strong determination for justice comes from the very strong, dynamic personality of my father ... I have rarely ever met a person more fearless and courageous than my father ... The thing that I admire most about my dad is his genuine Christian character. He is a man of real integrity, deeply committed to moral and ethical principles. He is conscientious in all of his undertakings ... If I had a problem I could always call Daddy.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And this is one of the big problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up the victims of distorted and disrupted personality.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A piece of freedom is no longer enough for human beings...unlike bread, a slice of liberty does not finish hunger. Freedom is like life. It cannot be had in installments. Freedom is indivisible--we have it all, or we are not free.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. To have serpent-like qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike without serpent-like qualities is to be sentimental, anemic and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
But by all means, keep moving.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Our age is one of guided missiles and unguided men.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
You cannot defect form an insight. You cannot unsee what you have seen.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. [...] The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. [...] To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life's highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. "A Time to Break Silence," at Riverside Church.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King, Jr.