Authors - Martin Luther King Jr.
Brief Biography
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism. - Wikipedia
Quotes by Martin Luther King Jr.Browse all of these
Quote 679by Anonymous on 06/01/2011
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.
Quote 1108by Anonymous on 10/01/2011
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
Quote 1135by Anonymous on 10/01/2011
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.
Quote 1225by Anonymous on 11/01/2011
A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
Quote 1270by Anonymous on 11/01/2011
All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.
Quote 1339by Anonymous on 12/01/2011
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Quote 1453by Anonymous on 13/01/2011
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.
Quote 1539by Anonymous on 14/01/2011
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
Quote 1683by Anonymous on 15/01/2011
I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law.
Quote 1738by Anonymous on 16/01/2011
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Quote 1811by Anonymous on 16/01/2011
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.
Quote 1926by Anonymous on 19/01/2011
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.
Quote 1954by Anonymous on 19/01/2011
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.
Quote 1977by Anonymous on 19/01/2011
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Quote 1983by Anonymous on 20/01/2011
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.
Quote 2138by Anonymous on 22/01/2011
Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
Quote 2185by Anonymous on 24/01/2011
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.
Quote 2229by Anonymous on 25/01/2011
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Quote 2238by Anonymous on 25/01/2011
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.
Quote 2267by Anonymous on 25/01/2011
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Quote 2276by Anonymous on 27/01/2011
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Quote 2317by Anonymous on 27/01/2011
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Quote 2328by Anonymous on 28/01/2011
Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.
Quote 2349by Anonymous on 28/01/2011
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.
Quote 2413by Anonymous on 29/01/2011
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Quote 2424by Anonymous on 29/01/2011
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Quote 2485by Anonymous on 31/01/2011
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.
Quote 2543by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
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.
Quote 2563by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.
Quote 2583by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Quote 2584by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
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.
Quote 2598by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
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.
Quote 2603by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Quote 2620by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
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.
Quote 2621by Anonymous on 02/02/2011
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.
Quote 2645by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
Quote 2731by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude.
Quote 2742by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'
Quote 2812by Anonymous on 03/02/2011
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
Quote 3167by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
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.
Quote 3179by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
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.
Quote 3584by Anonymous on 07/02/2011
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.
Quote 4207by Anonymous on 17/02/2011
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.
Quote 4221by Anonymous on 18/02/2011
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
Quote 4471by Anonymous on 22/02/2011
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Quote 4543by Anonymous on 23/02/2011
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.
Quote 4722by Anonymous on 26/02/2011
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.
Quote 4748by Anonymous on 27/02/2011
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.
Quote 4981by Anonymous on 04/05/2011
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.
Quote 5239by Anonymous on 06/06/2011
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.
Quote 6252by Anonymous on 17/09/2011
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Quote 6425by Anonymous on 19/09/2011
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.
Quote 6466by Anonymous on 19/09/2011
Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.
Quote 6844by Anonymous on 11/10/2011
Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.
Quote 7252by Anonymous on 29/10/2011
All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.
Quote 8922by Anonymous on 06/06/2012
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Quote 9045by Anonymous on 13/06/2012
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
Quote 9108by Anonymous on 19/06/2012
Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.
Quote 9186by Anonymous on 24/06/2012
Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Quote 13414by Anonymous on 20/07/2013
I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Quote 13819by Anonymous on 06/09/2013
Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
