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A Host Of Positive Psychological Changes Inevitably Will Result From Widespread Economic Security. The Dignity Of The Individual Will Flourish When The Decisions Concerning His Life Are In His Own Hands, When He Has The Means To Seek Self-improvement. Personal Conflicts Among Husbands, Wives And Children Will Diminish When The Unjust Measurement Of Human Worth On The Scale Of Dollars Is Eliminated.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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A Host Of Positive

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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A Host Of Positive Psychological Changes Inevitably Will Result From Widespread Economic Security. The Dignity Of The Individual Will Flourish When The Decisions Concerning His Life Are In His Own Hands, When He Has The Means To Seek Self-improvement. Personal Conflicts Among Husbands, Wives And Children Will Diminish When The Unjust Measurement Of Human Worth On The Scale Of Dollars Is Eliminated.

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In Spite Of Its Glowing Talk About The Welfare Of The Masses, Communism's Methods And Philosophy Strip Man Of His Dignity And Worth, Leaving Him As Little More Than A Depersonalized Cog In The Ever-turning Wheel Of The State.

[nonviolence] Is Directed Against Forces Of Evil Rather Than Against Persons Who Happen To Be Doing The Evil. It Is Evil That The Nonviolent Resister Seeks To Defeat, Not The Persons Victimized By Evil.

We Must Meet The Forces Of Hate With The Power Of Love.

So I'm Happy Tonight. I'm Not Worried About Anything. I'm Not Fearing Any Man. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Coming Of The Lord!

And Before You Finish Eating Breakfast In The Morning, You've Depended On More Than Half Of The World. This Is The Way Our Universe Is Structured, This Is Its Interrelated Quality.

It Does Not Matter How Long You Live, But How Well You Do It.

A Second Way That Oppressed People Sometimes Deal With Oppression Is To Resort To Physical Violence And Corroding Hatred.

Nonviolence Is The Answer To The Crucial Political Moral Questions Of Our Time.

Foundation Of Love

He (jesus) Knew That The Old Eye-for-eye Philosophy Would Leave Everyone Blind. He Did Not Seek To Overcome Evil With Evil. He Overcame Evil With Good. Although Crucified By Hate, He Responded With Aggressive Love.

As Long As The Mind Is Enslaved, The Body Can Never Be Free. Psychological Freedom, A Firm Sense Of Self-esteem, Is The Most Powerful Weapon Against The Long Night Of Physical Slavery.

Hate Multiplies Hate, Violence Multiplies Violence, And Toughness Multiplies Toughness In A Descending Spiral Of Destruction.

To Have Serpentlike Qualities Devoid Of Dovelike Qualities Is To Be Passionless, Mean, And Selfish.

So When Jesus Says "love Your Enemies," He Is Setting Forth A Profound And Ultimately Inescapable Admonition.

When We See Social Relationships Controlled Everywhere By The Principles Which Jesus Illustrated In Life -- Trust, Love, Mercy, And Altruism -- Then We Shall Know That The Kingdom Of God Is Here.

Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It. Hatred Confuses Life; Love Harmonizes It. Hatred Darkens Life; Love Illuminates It.

The Profit Motive, When It Is The Sole Basis Of An Economic System, Encourages A Cutthroat Competition And Selfish Ambition That Inspires Men To Be More Concerned About Making A Living Than Making A Life.

Love Is A Usually Force Able Of Transforming An Rivalry Into Friend.

I Have A Dream That One Day, Down In Alabama, With Its Vicious Racists, With Its Governor Having His Lips Dripping With The Words Of "interposition" And "nullification" - One Day Right There In Alabama Little Black Boys And Black Girls Will Be Able To Join Hands With Little White Boys And White Girls As Sisters And Brothers.

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age.

There Is Nothing More Tragic Than To Find An Individual Bogged Down In The Length Of Life, Devoid Of Breadth.

And When This Happens, When We Allow Freedom Ring, When We Let It Ring From Every Village And Every Hamlet, From Every State And Every City, We Will Be Able To Speed Up That Day When All Of God's Children, Black Men And White Men, Jews And Gentiles, Protestants And Catholics, Will Be Able To Join Hands And Sing In The Words Of The Old Negro Spiritual: Free At Last! Free At Last! Thank God Almighty, We Are Free At Last!

A Man Who Won't Die For Something Is Not Fit To Live.

Racial Segregation Must Be Seen For What It Is, And That Is An Evil System, A New Form Of Slavery Covered Up With Certain Niceties Of Complexity.

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.

Shallow Understanding From People Of Good Will Is More Frustrating Than Absolute Misunderstanding From People Of Ill Will.

You Don't Have To See The Whole Staircase, Just Take The First Step.

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.

The Most Dangerous Criminal May Be The Man Gifted With Reason, But With No Morals.

I Am Convinced That Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World. It Is Not An Expression Of Impractical Idealism, But Of Practical Realism.

The World In Which We Live Is Geographically One. The Challenge That We Face Today Is To Make It One In Terms Of Brotherhood.

Education Without Morals Is Like A Ship Without A Compass, Merely Wandering Nowhere.

Nonviolence Is A Powerful And Just Weapon. Which Cuts Without Wounding And Ennobles The Man Who Wields It. It Is A Sword That Heals.

Let Us Be Practical And Ask The Question: How Do We Love Our Enemies?

Love Your Enemies

I" Cannot Reach Fulfillment Without "thou." The Self Cannot Be Self Without Other Selves. Self-concern Without Other-concern Is Like A Tributary That Has No Outward Flow To The Ocean.

Another Reason Why We Must Love Our Enemies Is That Hate Scars The Soul And Distorts The Personality.

The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World : My Own Government, I Can Not Be Silent.

Evil Must Be Attacked By. . . The Day To Day Assault Of The Battering Rams Of Justice.

Many Of The Ugly Pages Of American History Have Been Obscured And Forgotten....america Owes A Debt Of Justice Which It Has Only Begun To Pay. If It Loses The Will To Finish Or Slackens In Its Determination, History Will Recall Its Crimes And The Country That Would Be Great Will Lack The Most Indispensable Element Of Greatness-justice.

So Let Freedom Ring From The Prodigious Hilltops Of New Hampshire.

I Have A Dream Speech

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.

Through Violence, You May Murder The Hater, But You Do Not Murder The Hate.

One Of These Days I'm Going To Put My Body Where My Mind Is.

The Thing That We Need In The World Today, Is A Group Of Men And Women Who Will Stand Up For Right And Be Opposed To Wrong, Wherever It Is. A Group Of People Who Have Come To See That Some Things Are Wrong, Whether They’re Never Caught Up With. Some Things Are Right, Whether Nobody Sees You Doing Them Or Not.

It Really Boils Down To This: That All Life Is Interrelated. We Are All Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tired Into A Single Garment Of Destiny. Whatever Affects One Destiny, Affects All Indirectly.

It's Just As Evil To Kill Vietnamese As It Is To Kill Americans.

A Society Is Always Eager To Cover Misdeeds With A Cloak Of Forgetfulness, But No Society Can Fully Repress An Ugly Past When The Ravages Persist Into The Present. America Owes A Debt Of Justice Which It Has Only Begun To Pay.

Segregation, As Even The Segregationists Know In Their Hearts, Is Morally Wrong And Sinful. If It Weren't, The White South Would Not Be Haunted As It Is By A Deep Sense Of Guilt For What It Has Done To The Negro - Guilt For Patronizing Him, Degrading Him, Brutalizing Him, Depersonalizing Him, Thingifying Him; Guilt For Lying To Itself. This Is The Source Of The Schizophrenia That The South Will Suffer Until It Goes Through Its Crisis Of Conscience.

Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater.

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The Ultimate Tragedy Is Not The Oppression And Cruelty By The Bad People But The Silence Over That By The Good People.

Stand Up For Justice, Stand Up For Truth; And God Will Be At Your Side Forever.

We Must Work Passionately And Unrelentingly For The Goal Of Freedom, But We Must Be Sure That Our Hands Are Clean In The Struggle. We Must Never Struggle With Falsehood, Hate, Or Malice. We Must Never Become Bitter.

Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

Power At Its Best Is Love Implementing The Demand Of Justice.

The Job Of The School Is To Teach So Well That Family Background Is No Longer An Issue.

If You Have Not Discovered Something You Are Willing To Die For, Then You Are Not Fit To Live.

Right Defeated Is Stronger Than Evil Triumphant.

Unconditional Love

Once You Become Dedicated To A Cause, Personal Security Is Not The Goal. What Will Happen To You Personally Does Not Matter. My Cause, My Race, Is Worth Dying For.

But We Refuse To Believe That The Bank Of Justice Is Bankrupt. We Refuse To Believe That There Are Insufficient Funds In The Great Vaults Of Opportunity Of This Nation.

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The Church Must Be Reminded That It Is Not The Master Or The Servant Of The State, But Rather The Conscience Of The State. It Must Be The Guide And The Critic Of The State, And Never Its Tool. If The Church Does Not Recapture Its Prophetic Zeal, It Will Become An Irrelevant Social Club Without Moral Or Spiritual Authority.

Through Our Scientific And Technological Genius We've Made Of This World A Neighborhood. And Now Through Our Moral And Ethical Commitment We Must Make Of It A Brotherhood. We Must All Learn To Live Together As Brothers-or We Will All Perish Together As Fools.

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Violence Brings Only Temporary Victories; Violence, By Creating Many More Social Problems Than It Solves, Never Brings Permanent Peace.

Our Age Is One Of Guided Missiles And Unguided Men.

In The Final Analysis, Means And Ends Must Cohere Because The End Is Preexistent In The Means, And, Ultimately, Destructive Means Cannot Bring About Constructive Ends.

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. And All Of The Other Shallow Things Will Not Matter. I Won't Have Any Money To Leave Behind. I Won't Have The Fine And Luxurious Things Of Life To Leave Behind. But I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind. And That's All I Want To Say.

By Its Very Nature, Hate Destroys And Tears Down; By Its Very Nature, Love Creates And Builds Up.

Whatever My Doubts, However Heavy The Burden, I Feel That I Must Accept The Task Of Helping To Make This Nation And This World A Better Place To Live In - For All Men, Black And White Alike.

Black And White

Without Love, There Is No Reason To Know Anyone, For Love Will In The End Connect Us To Our Neighbors, Our Children And Our Hearts.

Agape Means Recognition Of The Fact That All Life Is Interrelated. All Humanity Is Involved In A Single Process, And All Men Are Brothers. To The Degree That I Harm My Brother, No Matter What He Is Doing To Me, To That Extent I Am Harming Myself.

Man Must Evolve For All Human Conflict A Method Which Rejects Revenge, Aggression And Retaliation. The Foundation Of Such A Method Is Love.

Every Person Must Stand Up And Be Accountable, But Be Responsible For Their Actions.

Being Responsible

We Can't Slow Up Because Of Our Love For Democracy And Our Love For America. Someone Should Tell Faulkner That The Vast Majority Of The People On This Globe Are Colored.

We Cannot Be Truly Christian People So Long As We Flaunt The Central Teachings Of Jesus: Brotherly Love And The Golden Rule.

My Place Is In The Sunlight Of Opportunity.

I Firmly Believe That The Gandhian Philosophy Of Nonviolent Resistance Is The Only Logical And Moral Approach To The Solution Of The Race Problem In The United States.

Was Not Jesus An Extremist In Love? - "love Your Enemies, Bless Them That Curse You, Pray For Them That Despitefully Use You."

I Am Disappointed With America. And There Can Be No Great Disappointment Where There Is Not Great Love. I Am Disappointed With Our Failure To Deal Positively And Forthrightly With The Triple Evils Of Racism, Economic Exploitation, And Militarism. We Are Presently Moving Down A Dead-end Road That Can Lead To National Disaster. America Has Strayed To The Far Country Of Racism And Militarism.

War Is The Greatest Plague That Can Afflict Mankind... Any Scourge Is Preferable To It.

I Would Suffer All The Humiliation, All The Torture, The Absolute Ostracism And Even Death, To Prevent Violence

One Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change. Every Society Has Its Protectors Of Status Quo And Its Fraternities Of The Indifferent Who Are Notorious For Sleeping Through Revolutions. Today, Our Very Survival Depends On Our Ability To Stay Awake, To Adjust To New Ideas, To Remain Vigilant And To Face The Challenge Of Change.

Your Truth Will Increase As You Know Listen To The Truth Of Others

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.

My Country, 'tis Of Thee, Sweet Land Of Liberty, Of Thee I Sing. Land Where My Fathers Died, Land Of The Pilgrim's Pride, From Every Mountainside, Let Freedom Ring.

May I Stress The Need For Courageous, Intelligent, And Dedicated Leadership... Leaders Of Sound Integrity. Leaders Not In Love With Publicity, But In Love With Justice. Leaders Not In Love With Money, But In Love With Humanity. Leaders Who Can Subject Their Particular Egos To The Greatness Of The Cause.

We Must Have Our Freedom Now. We Must Have The Right To Vote. We Must Have Equal Protection Of The Law.

Every Man [human Being] Is An Heir To A Legacy Of Dignity And Worth

Christ Furnished The Spirit And Motivation While Gandhi Furnished The Method.

I Guess One Of The Great Agonies Of Life Is That We Are Constantly Trying To Finish That Which Is Unfinishable

The Great Issue Of Life Is To Harness The Drum Major Instinct.

The Old Law Of An Eye For An Eye Leaves Everyone Blind. It Destroys Communities And Makes Humanity Impossible. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers... In Winning Our Freedom, We Will So Appeal To You Heart And Conscience That We Will Win You In The Process.

There Is Such A Thing As The Freedom Of Exhaustion. Some People Are So Worn Down By The Yoke Of Oppression That They Give Up. [...] The Oppressed Must Never Allow The Conscience Of The Oppressor To Slumber. [...] To Accept Injustice Or Segregation Passively Is To Say To The Oppressor That His Actions Are Morally Right.

Join With The Earth And Each Other, To Bring New Life To The Land, To Restore The Waters, To Refresh The Air, To Renew The Forests, To Care For The Plants, To Protect The Creatures, To Celebrate The Seas, To Rejoice In The Sunlight, To Sing The Song Of The Stars, To Recall Our Destiny, To Renew Our Spirits, To Reinvigorate Our Bodies, To Recreate The Human Community, To Promote Justice And Peace, To Love Our Children And Love One Another, To Join Together As Many And Diverse Expressions Of One Loving Mystery, For The Healing Of The Earth And The Renewal Of All Life.

Unless You Have Found Something In Life To Live For That Is More Important To You Than Your Own Life, You Will Always Be A Slave. For All Another Man Needs To Do Is Threaten To Take Your Life To Get You To Do His Bidding.

A Man Dies When He Refuses To Stand Up For That Which Is Right. A Man Dies When He Refuses To Stand Up For Justice. A Man Dies When He Refuses To Take A Stand For That Which Is True.

Jazz Speaks For Life. The Blues Tell The Story Of Life's Difficulties.

There Is Little Hope For Us Until We Become Tough-minded Enough To Break Loose From The Shackles Of Prejudice, Half-truths, And Downright Ignorance. The Shape Of The World Today Does Not Permit Us The Luxury Of Soft Mindedness. A Nation Or A Civilization That Continues To Produce Soft Minded Men Purchases Its Own Spiritual Death On An Installment Plan.

White Americans Must Be Made To Understand The Basic Motives Underlying Negro Demonstrations. Many Pent-up Resentments And Latent Frustrations Are Boiling Inside The Negro, And He Must Release Them. It Is Not A Threat But A Fact Of History That If An Oppressed People's Pent-up Emotions Are Not Nonviolently Released, They Will Be Violently Released.

Money, Like Any Other Force Such As Electricity, Is Amoral And Can Be Used For Either Good Or Evil.

Worship Is As Natural To The Human Family As The Sing Of The Sun Is To The Cosmic Order.

Let The Negro March. Let Him Make Pilgrimages To City Hall. Let Him Go On Freedom Rides. And Above All, Make An Effort To Understand Why He Must Do This. For If His Frustration And Despair Are Allowed To Continue Piling Up, Millions Of Negroes Will Seek Solace And Security In Black-nationalist Ideologies. And This, Inevitably, Would Lead To A Frightening Racial Nightmare.

A Host Of Positive Psychological Changes Inevitably Will Result From Widespread Economic Security. The Dignity Of The Individual Will Flourish When The Decisions Concerning His Life Are In His Own Hands, When He Has The Means To Seek Self-improvement. Personal Conflicts Among Husbands, Wives And Children Will Diminish When The Unjust Measurement Of Human Worth On The Scale Of Dollars Is Eliminated.

A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Cause Us To Question The Fairness And Justice Of Many Of Our Present Policies.

Breaking Silence

Nonviolent Resistance Makes It Possible For The Negro To Remain In The South And Struggle For His Rights. The Negro's Problem Will Not Be Solved By Running Away.

One Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change.

Social Activism

Nonviolence Is Not Sterile Passivity, But A Powerful Moral Force Which Makes For Social Transformation.

Social Transformation

I Would Not Hesitate To Say That It Is Unfortunate That So-called Demonstrations Are Taking Place In Birmingham At This Time, But I Would Say In More Emphatic Terms That It Is Even More Unfortunate That The White Power Structure Of This City Left The Negro Community With No Other Alternative.

Make Your Way To Death Row And Speak With The Tragic Victims Of Criminality. As They Prepare To Make Their Pathetic Walk To The Electric Chair, Their Hopeless Cry Is That Society Will Not Forgive. Capital Punishment Is Society's Final Assertion That It Will Not Forgive.

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal.

Our Children Need Our Presence, Not Our Presents.

Was Not Abraham Lincoln An Extremist? - "this Nation Cannot Survive Half Slave And Half Free."

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy. Instead Of Diminishing Evil, It Multiplies It. Through Violence You May Murder The Liar, But You Cannot Murder The Lie, Nor Establish The Truth. Through Violence You May Murder The Hater, But You Do Not Murder Hate. In Fact, Violence Merely Increases Hate... Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness: Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate: Only Love Can Do That.

Many White Americans Of Good Will Have Never Connected Bigotry With Economic Exploitation. They Have Deplored Prejudice But Tolerated Or Ignored Economic Injustice.

If I Lived In China Or Even Russia, Or Any Totalitarian Country, Maybe I Could Understand Some Of These Illegal Injunctions. ... But Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Assembly. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Speech. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of The Press. Somewhere I Read That The Greatness Of America Is The Right To Protest For Right.

Truth Crushed To Earth Will Rise Again.

Perhaps...the Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

Political Extremism

I Plan To Stand By Nonviolence, Because I Have Found It To Be A Philosophy Of Life That Regulates Not Only My Dealings In The Struggle For Racial Justice, But Also My Dealings With People, And With My Own Self.

On The One Hand We Are Called To Play The Good Samaritan On Life's Roadside; But That Will Be Only An Initial Act. One Day We Must Come To See That The Whole Jericho Road Must Be Transformed So That Men And Women Will Not Be Constantly Beaten And Robbed As They Make Their Journey On Life's Highway. True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar; It Is Not Haphazard And Superficial. It Comes To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring. "a Time To Break Silence," At Riverside Church

He Who Passively Accepts Evil Is As Much Involved In It As He Who Helps To Perpetrate It. He Who Accepts Evil Without Protesting Against It Is Really Cooperating With It.

This Revolution Is Genuine Because It Was Born From The Same Womb That Always Gives Birth To Massive Social Upheavals - The Womb Of Intolerable Conditions And Unendurable Situations.

The Negroes Of America Had Taken The President, The Press And The Pulpit At Their Word When They Spoke In Broad Terms Of Freedom And Justice. But The Absence Of Brutality And Unregenerate Evil Is Not The Presence Of Justice. To Stay Murder Is Not The Same Thing As To Ordain Brotherhood.

I Choose To Give My Life For Those Who Have Been Left Out Of The Sunlight Of Opportunity

Make A Career Of Humanity. Commit Yourself To The Struggle For Equal Rights.

Without Love, Benevolence Becomes Egotism.

The More There Are Riots, The More Repressive Actin Will Take Place, And The More We Face The Danger Of A Right-wing Takeover And Eventually A Fascist Society.

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 To His Scientific And Technological Abundance; We've Learned To Fly The Air Like Birds, We've Learned To Swim The Seas Like Fish, And Yet We Haven't Learned To Walk The Earth As Brothers And Sisters.

The Human Heart Is Like A Ship On A Stormy Sea Driven About By Winds Blowing From All Four Corners Of Heaven.

I've Seen Too Much Hate To Want To Hate, Myself.

Many Men Cry Peace! Peace! But They Refuse To Do The Things That Make For Peace.

If You Lose Hope, Somehow You Lose The Vitality That Keeps 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.

If You Can’t Run, Walk; If You Can’t Walk, Crawl, But Keep Moving Forward!

I Have A Dream Today!

There Comes A Time When The Cup Of Endurance Runs Over, And Men Are No Longer Willing To Be Plunged Into The Abyss Of Despair.

Means We Use Must Be As Pure As The Ends We Seek.

We Still Have A Choice Today: Nonviolent Coexistence Or Violent Co-annihilation. This May Well Be Mankind's Last Chance To Choose Between Chaos And Community.

We Had No Alternative Except That Of Preparing For Direct Action, Whereby We Would Present Our Very Bodies As A Means Of Laying Our Case Before The Conscience Of The Local And National Community.

One Of The Most Persistent Ambiguities That We Face Is That Everybody Talks About Peace As A Goal. However, It Does Not Take Sharpest-eyed Sophistication To Discern That While Everbody Talks About Peace, Peace Has Become Practically Nobody's Business Among The Power-wielders. Many Men Cry Peace! Peace! But They Refuse To Do The Things That Make For Peace.

In Struggling For Human Dignity The Oppressed People Of The World Must Not Allow Themselves To Become Bitter Or Indulge In Hate Campaigns. To Retaliate With Hate And Bitterness Would Do Nothing But Intensify The Hate In The World. Along The Way Of Life, Someone Must Have Sense Enough And Morality Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate. This Can Be Done Only By Projecting The Ethics Of Love To The Center Of Our Lives.

I Want To Be The White Man's Brother, Not His Brother-in-law.

Something Should Remind Us Once More That The Great Things In This Universe Are Things That We Never See.

Too Unconcerned To Love And Too Passionless To Hate, Too Detached To Be Selfish And Too Lifeless To Be Unselfish, Too Indifferent To Experience Joy And Too Cold To Express Sorrow, They Are Neither Dead Nor Alive; They Merely Exist.

Even If I Were Certain That The World Would End Tomorrow, I Would Plant A Tree This Very Day

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy.

Men Often Hate Each Other Because They Fear Each Other; They Fear Each Other Because They Don't Know Each Other; They Don't Know Each Other Because They Can Not Communicate; They Can Not Communicate Because They Are Separated.

Slaves Do Not Always Welcome Their Deliverers. They Become Accustomed To Being Slaves. They Would Rather Gear Those Ills They Have

Somehow We Must Transform The Dynamics Of The World Power Struggle From The Negative Nuclear Arms Race Which No One Can Win To A Positive Contest To Harness Man's Creative Genius For The Purpose Of Making Peace And Prosperity A Reality For All Of The Nations Of The World.

Will We Be Extremists For Hate, Or Will We Be Extremists For Love? Will We Be Extremists For The Preservation Of Injustice, Or Will We Be Extremists For The Cause Of Justice?

Be True To What You Said On Paper.

I Am In Birmingham Because Injustice Is Here. Just As The Eighth Century Prophets Left Their Little Villages And Carried Their "thus Saith The Lord" Far Beyond The Boundaries Of Their Home Towns; And Just As The Apostle Paul Left His Little Village Of Tarsus And Carried The Gospel Of Jesus Christ To Practically Every Hamlet And City Of The Graeco-roman World, I Too Am Compelled To Carry The Gospel Of Freedom Beyond My Particular Home Town. Like Paul, I Must Constantly Respond To The Macedonian Call For Aid.

My Faith In Man Is, At Bottom, A Faith In God.

The Nonviolent Approach Does Not Immediately Change The Heart Of The Oppressor. It First Does Something To The Hearts And Souls Of Those Committed To It. It Gives Them New Self-respect; It Calls Up Resources Of Strength And Courage They Did Not Know They Had.

If I Sought To Answer All Of The Criticisms That Cross My Desk, My Secretaries Would Be Engaged In Little Else In The Course Of The Day, And I Would Have No Time For Constructive Work.

I Think A Revolution Can Survive Without Single Centralized Leadership.

Is Is Always Time To Do The Right Thing.

It Is No Longer A Choice Between Violence And Nonviolence In This World; It's Nonviolence Or Nonexistence. That Is Where We Are Today.

If You've Got Nothing Worth Dying For, You've Got Nothing Worth Living For.

All Men Are Interdependent. Every Nation Is An Heir Of A Vast Treasury Of Ideas And Labor To Which Both The Living And The Dead Of All Nations Have Contributed. Whether We Realize It Or Not, Each Of Us Lives Eternally 'in The Red.' We Are Everlasting Debtors To Known And Unknown Men And Women.

It Is Not Only Poverty That Torments The Negro; It Is The Fact Of Poverty Amid Plenty. It Is A Misery Generated By The Gulf Between The Affluence He Sees In The Mass Media And The Deprivation He Experiences In His Everyday Life.

You Cannot Defect Form An Insight. You Cannot Unsee What You Have Seen.

This Business Of Burning Human Beings With Napalm, Of Filling Our Nation's Homes With Orphans And Widows, Of Injecting Poisonous Drugs Of Hate Into Veins Of Peoples Normally Humane, Of Sending Men Home From Dark And Bloody Battlefields Physically Handicapped And Psychologically Deranged, Cannot Be Reconciled With Wisdom, Justice And Love.

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.

In A Real Sense Faith Is Total Surrender To God .

The Intellectual And Moral Satisfaction That I Failed To Gain From The Utilitarianism Of Bentham And Mill, The Revolutionary Methods Of Marx And Lenin, The Social Contract Theory Of Hobbes, The "back To Nature" Optimism Of Rousseau, And The Superman Philosophy Of Nietzsche, I Found In The Nonviolent Resistance Philosophy Of Gandhi. I Came To Feel That This Was The Only Morally And Practically Sound Method Open To Oppressed People In Their Struggle For Freedom.

The United States Is The Largest Exporter Of Violence In The World

Where Evil Men Would Seek To Perpetuate An Unjust Status Quo, Good Men Must Seek To Bring Into Being A Real Order Of Justice.

We Can Walk Through The Darkest Night With The Radiant Conviction That All Things Work Together For The Good.

Working Together

Man Is Man Because He Is Free To Operate Within The Framework Of His Destiny. He Is Free To Deliberate, To Make Decisions, And To Choose Between Alternatives.

For You All Think God Is One Who Rewards Good And Punishes Evil, But I Say To You That God Is One Who Loves You And Has Compassion For Everyone. You Just Have To Pray To Him And Believe In Him. He Will Always Be Your Guiding Light.

If America's Soul Becomes Totally Poisoned, Part Of The Autopsy Must Read Vietnam. It Can Never Be Saved So Long As It Destroys The Hopes Of Men The World Over.

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.

My Obligation Is To Do The Right Thing. The Rest Is In God's Hands.

We Must Have The Faith That Things Will Work Out Somehow, That God Will Make A Way For Us When There Seems No Way.

The Christians Who Engaged In Infamous Persecutions And Shameful Inquisitions Were Not Evil Men But Misguided Men. The Churchmen Who Felt They Had An Edict From God To Withstand The Progress Of Science, Whether In The Form Of A Copernican Revolution Or A Darwinian Theory Of Natural Selection, Were Not Mischievous Men But Misinformed Men. And So Christ's Words From The Cross Are Written In Sharp-edged Terms Across Some Of The Most Inexpressible Tragedies Of History: 'they Know Not What They Do'.

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.

Civilization And Violence Are Antithetical Concepts.

Faith Can Give Us Courage To Face The Uncertainties Of The Future.

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World. This Creative Force Is The Most Potent Instrument Available In Mankind's Quest For Peace And Security.

I've Always Tried To Be What I Call Militantly Nonviolent. I Don't Believe That Anyone Could Seriously Accuse Me Of Not Being Totally Committed To The Breakdown Of Segregation.

The Difference Between A Dreamer And A Visionary Is That A Dreamer Has His Eyes Closed And A Visionary Has His Eyes Open

The Nations Of Asia And Africa Are Moving With Jetlike Speed Toward The Goal Of Political Independence, And We Still Creep At Horse-and-buggy Pace Toward The Gaining Of A Cup Of Coffee At A Lunch Counter.

I Still Believe That Standing Up For The Truth Of God Is The Greatest Thing In The World. This Is The End (purpose) Of Life. The End Of Life Is Not To Be Happy. The End Of Life Is Not To Achieve Pleasure And Avoid Pain. The End Of Life Is To Do The Will Of God, Come What May.

Agape Is Disinterested Love. . . . Agape Does Not Begin By Discriminating Between Worthy And Unworthy People, Or Any Qualities People Possess. It Begins By Loving Others For Their Sakes. . . . Therefore, Agape Makes No Distinction Between Friend And Enemy; It Is Directed Toward Both.

A Nation That Continues Year After Year To Spend More Money On Military Defense Than On Programs Of Social Uplift Is Approaching Spiritual Doom.

I Choose To Identify With The Underprivileged, I Choose To Give My Life For The Hungry, I Choose To Give My Life For Those Who Have Been Left Out Of The Sunlight Of Opportunity . . . This Is The Way I'm Going. If It Means Suffering, I'm Going That Way. If It Means Dying For Them, I'm Going That Way, Because I Heard A Voice Saying Do Something For Others.

The Recent Statement Of Your Executive Committee Are The Sentiments Of My Own Heart And I Found Myself In Full Accord When I Read Its Opening Lines: "a Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal." That Time Has Come For Us In Relation To Vietnam. Some Of Us Who Have Already Begun To Break The Silence Of The Night Have Found That The Calling To Speak Is Often A Vocation Of Agony, But We Must Speak. We Must Speak With All The Humility That Is Appropriate To Our Limited Vision, But We Must Speak.

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.

So I Have Tried To Make It Clear That It Is Wrong To Use Immoral Means To Attain Moral Ends. But Now I Must Affirm That It Is Just As Wrong, Or Even More So, To Use Moral Means To Preserve Immoral Ends.

I Have Consistently Preached That Nonviolence Demands That The Means We Use Must Be As Pure As The Ends We Seek.

Violence Never Brings Permanent Peace. It Solves No Social Problem: It Merely Creates New And More Complicated Ones.

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.

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.

It Is Purposeless To Tell Negroes They Should Not Be Enraged When They Should Be. Indeed, They Will Be Mentally Healthier If They Do Not Suppress Rage, But Vent It Constructively And Use Its Energy Peacefully But Forcefully To Cripple The Operations Of An Oppressive Society. Civil Disobedience Can Utilize The Militance Wasted In Riots To Seize Clothes Or Groceries Many Do Not Even Want.

There Is Nothing But A Lack Of Social Vision To Prevent Us From Paying An Adequate Wage To Every American Citizen Whether He Be A Hospital Worker, Laundry Worker, Maid Or Day Laborer

We Aren't Going To Have Peace On Earth Until We Recognize The Basic Fact Of The Interrelated Structure Of All Reality.

Eating Breakfast

Without Denying The Value Of Scientific Endeavor, There Is A Striking Absurdity In Committing Billions To Reach The Moon Where No People Live, While Only A Fraction Of That Amount Is Appropriated To Service The Densely Populated Slums.

When We Ask Negroes To Abide By The Law, Let Us Also Declare That The White Man Does Not Abide By Law In The Ghettos. Day In And Day Out He Violates Welfare Laws To Deprive The Poor Of Their Meager Allotments; He Flagrantly Violates Building Codes And Regulations; His Police Make A Mockery Of Law; He Violates Laws On Equal Employment And Education And The Provisions Of Civil Services. The Slums Are The Handiwork Of A Vicious System Of The White Society; Negroes Live In Them, But They Do Not Make Them, Any More Than A Prisoner Makes A Prison.

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