If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Quotees Archive
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend
- 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.
Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Nonviolence 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.
Nonviolence 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.
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.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.
- 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.
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.
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.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
- 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.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
- 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.
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.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- 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.
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.
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.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
A lie cannot live.
- 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.
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.
A right delayed is a right denied.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
- 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.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
- 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.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.
- 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.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that
- 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.
Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.
- Martin Luther King Jr.