Martin Luther King Jr.

Quotes

• “On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity ...”
• “I suggested then that the prize was not given merely as recognition of past achievement, but also as recognition, a more...”
• “May I say just a word to those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with Christ...”
• “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the stat...”
• “The words 'bad timing' came to be ghosts haunting our every move in Birmingham. Yet people who used this argument were i...”
• “And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask th...”
• “In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the Uni...”
• “Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is fou...”
• “Admitting the weighty problems and staggering disappointments, Christianity affirms that God is able to give us the powe...”
• “Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossibl...”
• “The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other ...”
• “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It...”
• “The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which ...”
• “What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is s...”
• “Through our scientific and technological genius we've made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and e...”
• “...The straitjackets of race prejudice and discrimination do not wear only southern labels. The subtle, psychological te...”
• “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonmen...”
• “I was in the kitchen drinking coffee when I heard Coretta cry, "Martin, Martin, come quickly!" I put down my cup and ran...”
• “It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent action...”
• “Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that thereare some things so precious, some things so ete...”
• “The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that go...”
• “The non-violent resistor not only avoids external, physical violence, but he avoids internal violence of spirit. He not ...”
• “As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not ...”
• “Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to ...”
• “We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fig...”
• “I always contended that we as a race must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, but to c...”
• “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, t...”
• “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot driv...”
• “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, sufferin...”
• “We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no unif...”
• “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten...”
• “[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil...”
• “Only God is able. It is faith in Him that we must rediscover. With this faith we can transform bleak and desolate valley...”
• “we shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force ...”
• “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the gre...”
• “This Revolution is genuine because it was born from the same womb that always gives birth to massive social upheavals - ...”
• “We can all get more together than we can apart. And this is the way we gain power. Power is the ability to achieve purpo...”
• “What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of tough-mindedness but has at the sam...”
• “We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. ...”
• “Our only hope lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring ...”
• “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths t...”
• “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that h...”
• “When religion becomes so involved in a future good "over yonder" that it forgets the present evils over here it is as dr...”
• “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate c...”
• “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - th...”
• “The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in di...”
• “Only a "dry as dust" religion prompts a minister to extol the glories of Heaven while ignoring the social conditions tha...”
• “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly...”
• “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is app...”
• “All too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security o...”