Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- 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.
I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
- 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.
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is taking the first step,
even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- 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.
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.
The moral arc of the universe
bends at the elbow of justice.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Seeing is not always believing.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- 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.
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.
Property is intended to serve life,
and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect,
it has no personal being.
It is part of the earth man walks on.
It is not man.
- 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.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me,
but it can keep him from lynching me,
and I think that's pretty important.
- 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.
A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.
- 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.
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.
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.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is,
'What are you doing for others?'
- 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.
We must learn to live together as brothers
or perish together as fools.
- 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.
We may have all come on different ships,
but we're in the same boat now.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind.
The time is always right to do the right thing.
- 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.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority
has made the world better.
- 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.
What are you doing for others?
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The time is always right to do what is right.
- 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.
A lie cannot live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus
but a molder of consensus.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those
who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
- 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.
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.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual
bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The hope of a secure and livable world
lies with disciplined nonconformists
who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
- 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.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must use time creatively.
- 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.
The means we use must be as pure
as the ends we seek.
- 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.
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.
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous
than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have decided to stick with love.
Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- 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
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