Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
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All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
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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.
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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.
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Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral.
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Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change.
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Make your way to death row and speak with the tragic victims of criminality. As they prepare to make their pathetic walk to the electric chair, their hopeless cry is that society will not forgive. Capital punishment is society's final assertion that it will not forgive.
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I would be the last to condemn the thousands of sincere and dedicated people outside the churches who have labored unselfishly through various humanitarian movements to cure the world of social evils, for I would rather a man be a committed humanist than an uncommitted Christian.
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The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at it's best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.
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Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.
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Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation.
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The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
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I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism.
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If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
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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.
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Unity has never meant uniformity.
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Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
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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.
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By nonviolent resistance, the Negro can also enlist all men of good will in his struggle for equality.
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You cannot defect form an insight. You cannot unsee what you have seen.
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Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.
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Many people in Harlem never go out of Harlem. I mean they'd never even been downtown. And you can see how this bitterness can accumulate. Here you see people crowded and hovered up in ghettos and slums with no hope.They see no way out.
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I feel that segregation is totally unchristian, and that it is against everything the Christian religion stands for.
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I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
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It all boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.