Martin King Quotes (40 Quotes)

The more there are riots, the more repressive action will take place, and the more we face the danger of a right-wing takeover and eventually a fascist society.

Whatever career you may choose for yourself - doctor, lawyer, teacher - let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man. Make a career of humanity.Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights.You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in.

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped.

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law. That would lead to anarchy.

Ah dearest Jesus, Holy Child,Make thee a bed, soft, undefiled,Within my heart, that it may beA quiet chamber kept for thee.

When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast with a scientific and technological abundance. We've learned to fly the air as birds, we've learned to swim the seas as fish, yet we haven't learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.

To be a Negro in America is to hope against hope.

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away, and that in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's fle

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic' 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 because conscience tells one it is right.

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.

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.

We refuse to believe that there is insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.

A good many observers have remarked that if equality could come at once the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white American is even more unprepared.

Normal fear protects us abnormal fear paralyses us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather to harness and master it.

There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American worker whether he is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice say that I was a drum major for peace I was a drum major for righteousness. I want to leave a committed life behind.

Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.

Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.

Compassion and nonviolence help us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear their questions, to know their assessment of ourselves. For from their point of view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers and sisters who are called the opposition

Forgiveness is not an occasional act it is an attitude.

Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

Love is the only cement that can hold this broken community together.When I am commanded to love, I am commanded to restore community, to resist injustice, and to meet the needs fo my brothers.

The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.The Trumpet of Conscience

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension it is the presence of justice.

When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.

I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam.

I have a dream, that one day all three of my children will one day, grow up in a society where they are not judged by their race, but by their character.

We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. Do to us what you will and we shall continue to love you.

Riots are the voices of the unheard.

Non violent action, the Negro saw, was the way to supplement, not replace, the progress of change. It was the way to divest himself of passivity with arraying himself in vindictive force.