Martin Luther King Jr.

Quotes

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.
But I know somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.
All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.
The time is always right to do what is right.
I've seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say: We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you.... But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force... If we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has the right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war.
Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.
God is not merely interestd in the freedom of brown men, yellow men, red men and black men.He is interested in the freedom of the whole human race.
Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?
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. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.
We have flown the air like birds and swum the seas like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.
The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.
A man who won’t die for something is not 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.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.
The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.
When evil men plot, good men must plan.
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.
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.
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 the law.
Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
If a man hasn't discovered something that he would die for, he isn't fit to live.
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.
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.
Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
A lie cannot 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.
A right delayed is a right denied.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.
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 one's conscience tells one that it is right.
Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
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 want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
Religion operates not only on the vertical plane but also on the horizontal. It seeks not only to integrate men with God but to integrate men with men and each man with himself.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
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.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
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.
From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring. But not only that: Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
I just want to do God's will.
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.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to an evil power...it is rather a courageous confrontation with evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
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.
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
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.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude.
We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
Injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'