A nation that continues year after year
to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift
is approaching spiritual doom.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Human salvation lies in the hands
of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The means by which we live have outdistanced
the ends for which we live.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe,
our class, and our nation;
and this means we must develop a world perspective.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,
every hill and mountain shall be made low,
the rough places will be made straight
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all flesh shall see it together.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is taking the first step,
even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- 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.
Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
- 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.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is some good in the worst of us
and some evil in the best of us.
When we discover this,
we are less prone to hate our enemies.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Seeing is not always believing.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Pity may represent little more
than the impersonal concern
which prompts the mailing of a check,
but true sympathy is the personal concern
which demands the giving of one's soul.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone
who has just done you a small favor
wish that he might have done you a greater one.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The moral arc of the universe
bends at the elbow of justice.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...
Every step toward the goal of justice
requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle;
the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will have to repent in this generation,
not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people,
but for the appalling silence of the good people.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a Dream...
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
A man should do his job so well that the living,
the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A lie cannot live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice
and when they fail in this purpose
they become the dangerously structured dams
that block the flow of social progress.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance
and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it BECAUSE it is right.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
An individual has not started living
until he can rise above the narrow confines
of his individualistic concerns
to the broader concerns of all humanity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Science investigates religion interprets.
Science gives man knowledge which is power
Religion gives man wisdom which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A nation or civilization that
continues to produce soft-minded men
purchases its own spiritual death
on the installment plan.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority
has made the world better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
One who breaks an unjust law
that conscience tells him is unjust,
and who willingly accepts
the penalty of imprisonment
in order to arouse the conscience
of the community over its injustice,
is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Man must evolve for all human conflict,
a method which rejects
revenge, aggression and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Science gives man knowledge, which is power;
religion gives man wisdom, which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.
He who is devoid of the power to forgive
is devoid of the power to love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of the greatest casualties
of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society...
shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must use time creatively.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes
in every waking moment of their lives
to remind them that the lie of their inferiority
is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Shallow understanding from people of good will
is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding
from people of ill will.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I submit that an individual who breaks the law
that conscience tells him is unjust
and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail
to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice,
is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the oppressed.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must build dikes of courage
to hold back the flood of fear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I just want to do God's will.
And he's allowed me to go to the mountain.
And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land!
I may not get there with you,
but I want you to know tonight that
we as a people will get to the promised land.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding
and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside,
is that they cannot win and their participants know it.
Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary
because it invites defeat.
It involves an emotional catharsis,
but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love
will have the final word in reality.
That is why right, temporarily defeated,
is stronger than evil triumphant.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have decided to stick with love.
Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Philanthropy is commendable,
but it must not cause the philanthropist
to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice
which make philanthropy necessary.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is,
'What are you doing for others?'
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I submit to you that if a man hasn't
discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We may have all come on different ships,
but we're in the same boat now.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
All progress is precarious, and the solution
of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world
that we must love our enemies - or else?
The chain reaction of evil -
hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -
must be broken, or else we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it
as he who helps to perpetrate it.
He who accepts evil without protesting against it
is really cooperating with it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everything that we see is a shadow
cast by that which we do not see.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those
who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am not interested in power for power's sake,
but I'm interested in power that is moral,
that is right and that is good.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A right delayed is a right denied.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.