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.
I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
- 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 scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Human salvation lies in the hands
of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is taking the first step,
even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Seeing is not always believing.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- 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.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
- 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.
Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
- 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.
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.
All progress is precarious, and the solution
of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I look to a day when people will not be judged
by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- 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.
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly
that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every man must decide whether he will
walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must learn to live together as brothers
or perish together as fools.
- 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.
The means we use must be as pure
as the ends we seek.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everything that we see is a shadow
cast by that which we do not see.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A lie cannot live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
I can never be what I ought to be
until you are what you ought to be.
This is the interrelated structure of reality.
- 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.
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.
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.
I have a Dream...
- 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.
We will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.
- 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.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- 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.
Non-violence means avoiding not only external physical violence
but also internal violence of spirit.
You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability,
but comes through continuous struggle.
And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.
A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is not enough to say we must not wage war.
It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears.
The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
If we are to go forward, we must go back
and rediscover those precious values -
that all reality hinges on moral foundations
and that all reality has spiritual control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
If physical death is the price
that I must pay to free my brothers and sisters
from a permanent death of the spirit,
then nothing can be more redemptive.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is,
'What are you doing for others?'
- 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.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A riot is, at bottom, the language of the unheard.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is incontestable and deplorable
that Negroes have committed crimes;
but they are derivative crimes.
They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
- 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.
The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent
will not pass until there is
an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
- 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.
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.
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.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual
bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
- 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.