Martin Luther Jr. King (1929-1968)

Quotes

• We must expect finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

• We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

• When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

• All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

• The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.

• A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.

• One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.

• Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

• The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.

• Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

• 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.

• Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

• I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

• Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. 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 to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'

• Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

• 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.

• ...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. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.

• In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

• Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

• 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.