The darkness of racial injustice will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more that three centuries American Negroes have been frustrated by day and bewilderment by night by unbearable injustice, and burdened with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The greatness of our God lies in the fact that [He] is both tough minded and tender hearted.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Our generation will not have regretted both perverse crimes, and the eerie silence of the kind
Martin Luther King, Jr.Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind.
Martin Luther King, Jr.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".
Martin Luther King, Jr.