Martin Luther King, Jr.
All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
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.
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.
Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.
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.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.Collection: Inspirational
You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.Collection: Inspirational
It is always the right time to do the right thing.Collection: Right Time
The SILENCE of the good people is more DANGEROUS than the BRUTALITY of the bad peopleCollection: People
May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership... Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.Collection: Integrity
Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.Collection: Greatness
Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.Collection: God
The surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.Collection: Joy Happiness
The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.Collection: Pain
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.Collection: Love
Never, never be afraid to do what's right.Collection: Civil Rights Leaders
Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!Collection: Inspirational
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Inspirational
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.Collection: Inspirational
There is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.Collection: Forgiveness
If you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl, but keep moving forward!Collection: Perseverance
It's not the violence of the few that scares me, it's the silence of the manyCollection: Silence
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.Collection: Believe
The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the "back to nature" optimism of Rousseau, and the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.Collection: Philosophy
Now let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God.Collection: Children
Whatever effects one directly, effects all indirectly.Collection: Effects
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.Collection: Humanity
There is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growthCollection: Growth
The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood.Collection: Spiritual
I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism.Collection: Love Is
Brutality was imprisoned in a lumious glare revealing the naked truth to the whole worldCollection: Naked
My uncertainty disappeared. Segregation is evil, and I cannot, as a minister, condone evil.Collection: Evil
I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.Collection: Country
The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late...'Collection: Men
And violence is impractical, because the old eye for an eye philosophy ends up leaving everybody blind .. It is immoral because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for everybody. Means and ends are inseparable. The means represent the ideal in the making; in the long run of history destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.Collection: Running
"When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality."Collection: Powerful
A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred.Collection: Inspirational
What the Negro wants - and will not stop until he gets - is absolute and unqualified freedom and equality here in this land of his birth, and not in Africa or in some imaginary state. The Negro no longer will be tolerant of anything less than his due right and heritage. He is pursuing only that which he knows is honorably his. He knows that he is right.Collection: Land
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 to lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We must keep going.Collection: Educational
We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and for justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Men
Agape means recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself.Collection: Wisdom
We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the federal minimum wage and extend its coverage.Collection: Rights
It is not only poverty that torments the Negro; it is the fact of poverty amid plenty. It is a misery generated by the gulf between the affluence he sees in the mass media and the deprivation he experiences in his everyday life.Collection: Media