Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.

• 12
• death

That old law about an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

• 11
• revenge

Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

• 11
• thought

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

• 9
• love

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

• 9
• faith

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

• 9

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

• 8
• past

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

• 8
• acquiescence

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

• 8
• age

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

• 7
• ends

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.

• 7
• equality

A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.

• 7
• bent

We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

• 6
• mind

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

• 6
• capable

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

• 6
• peace

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

• 6
• science

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

• 6
• progress

A lie cannot live.

• 5
• lie

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

• 5
• war

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.

• 5
• broader

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

• 4
• aggression

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

• 4
• justice

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

• 4
• become

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.

• 4
• interested

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.

• 4
• truth

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.

• 4
• affects

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.

• 3
• accepts

Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.

• 3
• science

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.

• 3
• equality

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

• 3
• hate

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

• 3
• avoiding

Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

• 3
• religion

A right delayed is a right denied.

• 3
• delayed

Riots are the voices of the unheard.

• 3
• revolution

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

• 2
• equality

Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.

• 2
• acquiescence

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.

• 2
• control

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.

• 2
• excellence

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

• 2
• brotherhood

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.

• 2
• racism

We have guided missiles and misguided men.

• 2
• guided

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

• 2
• cast

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

• 2
• morals

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

• 2
• creatively

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

• 2
• freedom

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

• 2
• forget

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

• 2
• cause

We must use time creatively -- and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.

• 2
• time

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

• 1
• right

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

• 1
• carving

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

• 1
• enough

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

• 1
• justice

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.

• 1
• tragedy

The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

• 1
• activism

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.

• 1
• happiness

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.

• 1
• almost

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

• 1
• approaching

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.

• 1
• law

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

• 1
• work

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 today!

• 1
• equality

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.

• 1
• peace

The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

• 1
• justice

Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.

• 1
• dreams

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.

• 1
• accepts

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

• 1
• satisfaction

The more there are riots, the more repressive actin will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.

• 1
• revolution

A riot is the language of the unheard.

• 1
• revolution

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.

• hate

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.

• respect

On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

• truth

People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other.

• fear

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate.

• liberalism

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.

• appalling

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

• absolute

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

• almost

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.

• accepted

Like anybody, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.

• foreboding

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

• inspirational

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

• pure

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But Im not concerned about that now. I just want to do Gods will. And Hes allowed me to go up to the mountain. And Ive looked over, and Ive 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.

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law ... That would lead to anarchy. An individual who breaks a law that his 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.

• justice

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.

• best

The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.

• self

Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.

• man

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

• freedom

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.

• activism

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

• leadership

And so 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.

• dreams

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

• man

It's not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus' thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that's the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil.

• hate

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.

• action

Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.

• god

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.

• abyss

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

• property

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.

• allowed

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

• awarness

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

• compassion

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.

• dream

Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others? Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.

• service

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.

• joy

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life's July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

• life

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

• war

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.

• soul

It is my hope that as the Negro plunges deeper into the quest for freedom and justice he will plunge even deeper into the philosophy of non-violence. The Negro all over the South must come to the point that he can say to his white brother: We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we will not obey your evil laws. We will soon wear you down by pure capacity to suffer.

• obedience

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.

• accepts

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

• violence

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

• history

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

• men

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.

• love

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.

• brothers

I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.

• man

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

• freedom

If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.

• angry

My personal trials have also taught me the value of unmerited suffering. As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways that I could respond to my situation: either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. Recognizing the necessity for suffering I have tried to make of it virtue. If only to save myself from bitterness, I have attempted to see my personal ordeals as an opportunity to transform myself and heal the people involved in the tragic situation, which now obtains. I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive.

• suffering

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.

• respect

There's another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. ... For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That's what hate does.

• hate

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.

• affirmation

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

• death

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?'

• motivational

Let us therefore continue our triumphal march to the realization of the American dream. for all of us today, the battle is in our hands. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We are still in for the season of suffering. How long? Not long. Because no lie can live forever. Our God is marching on.