Famous Quotes

Quotes by Martin Luther King Jr

• A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
• A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
• A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
• A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
• All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
• 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 the law.
• At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
• 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.
• Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that.
• 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.
• Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
• Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
• 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.
• 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.
• I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
• 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.
• 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.
• It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
• 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.
• Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'
• Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
• Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
• Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
• One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
• 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.
• Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.