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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. -
Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets as Raphael painted pictures, sweep streets as Michelangelo carved marble, sweep streets as Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Hate destroys the hater.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
For more than two centuries our foreparents labored here without wages; they made cotton king; and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation - and yet out of a bottomless vitality our people continue to thrive and develop.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
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. -
To be Negro in America is to hope against hope.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
[W]e are the heirs of a past of rope, fire, and murder. I for one am not ashamed of this past. My shame is for those who became so inhuman that they could inflict this torture upon us.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" - one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -
The supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.
Martin Luther King, Jr.