Top 1223 Quotes & Sayings by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American leader Martin Luther King, Jr..
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
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.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
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.
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.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
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.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
The time is always right to do what is right.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
I submit that an individual who breaks a 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.
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
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.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
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.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
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.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
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.
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.
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
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.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
A lie cannot live.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
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.
That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.
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.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
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?'
It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
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.
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.
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
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.
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
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