Martin Luther King Quotes - Famous Quotes by Martin Luther King
Born: 1929-01-15
Died: 1968-04-04
Martin Luther King Biography
...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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A man can't ride your back unless it's bent.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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But I know somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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 it is right.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Do not condemn the man that cannot think or act as fast as you can, because there was a time when you could not do things as well as you can today.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Forgiveness is not an occasional act it is an attitude.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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God is not merely interested in the freedom of brown men, yellow men, red men and black men.He is interested in the freedom of the whole human race.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Hatred paralyzes life love releases it. Hatred confuses life love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life love illumines it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I have a dream that one day ... the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action' who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for someone else's freedom who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.'
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
More quotations on: [ Law ] ***
I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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 and say, "Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
More quotations on: [ Friendship ] [ Enemy ] ***
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. the foundation of such a method is love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.'
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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One who condones evil is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
More quotations on: [ Silence ] ***
Our loyalties must transend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation and this means we must develop a world perspective.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
More quotations on: [ Science ] ***
Rarely do we find men who willingly to 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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
More quotations on: [ Immortality ] ***
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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The question is no longer between violence and non-violence it is between non-violence and non-existence.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The time is always right to do what is right.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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We shall have to repent in this generation , not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
More quotations on: [ Conservative ] [ Liberal ] ***
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.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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