American Christian minister and activist Martin Luther King Jr. became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King Jr. is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
Check out the Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on love, life, leadership, progress, freedom and death that helped shape the progressive world we live in today.
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes On Love:
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
“Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.”
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
“It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
“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.”
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
“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. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
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.
“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.”
—Strength to Love, 1963
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
“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.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Leadership
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“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.”
“Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.”
“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative. ”
“That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
“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.”
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes On Life:
“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.”
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.
“Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.”
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. ”
“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
“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. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”
“Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.”
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
“There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.”
“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
“There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”
“Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.”
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
“If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, ‘brethren!’ Be careful, teachers!”
“The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.”
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
Inspirational Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”
“A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”
“We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
“You will change your mind; You will change your looks; You will change your smile, laugh, and ways but no matter what you change, you will always be you.”
“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. ”
“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
“We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.”
“The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”
“A riot is the language of the unheard.”
“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”
“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”
“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.”
“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.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes On Death:
If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
“If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive. ”
King narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a decade before his death.
“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.”