I am convinced that...in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr.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.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door.
Martin Luther King, Jr.In the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence.
Martin Luther King, Jr.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.I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The hope of the world is still in dedicated minorities. The trail-blazers in human, scientific and religious freedom have always been in a minority.
Martin Luther King, Jr.What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Communism will never be defeated by atomic bombs. Our greatest defense against Communism is to take offensive action on behalf of justice and righteousness. We must seek to remove conditions of poverty, injustice, and racial discrimination.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Ten cures for depression are to go out and do something for someone else and repeat it nine times.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Be an artist at whatever you do. Even if you are a street sweeper, be the Michelangelo of street sweepers.
Martin Luther King, Jr.It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.
Martin Luther King, Jr.We may win a battle, but if in doing so we have planted thousands of seeds of hatred and fear..the war is not over- only the present conflict has ceased. There will be no peace as long as we react to violence with violence.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Nothing degrades a man do more than the allowed stoop so low as to hate someone
Martin Luther King, Jr.Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
Martin Luther King, Jr.I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and the root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems we face as a race.
Martin Luther King, Jr.We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society.
Martin Luther King, Jr.It will be one of the tragedies of Christian history if future historians record that at the height of the twentieth century the church was one of the greatest bulwarks of white supremacy.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love harmonies it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Martin Luther King, Jr.We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up.
Martin Luther King, Jr.But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.
Martin Luther King, Jr.For more than two centuries our foreparents labored here without wages; they made cotton king; and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation - and yet out of a bottomless vitality our people continue to thrive and develop.
Martin Luther King, Jr.If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.
Martin Luther King, Jr.