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From The Prodigious Hilltops Of New Hampshire, Let Freedom Ring. From The Mighty Mountains Of New York, Let Freedom Ring. From The Heightening Alleghenies Of Pennsylvania, Let Freedom Ring. But Not Only That: Let Freedom Ring From Every Hill And Molehill Of Mississippi.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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From The Prodigious Hilltops

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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From The Prodigious Hilltops Of New Hampshire, Let Freedom Ring. From The Mighty Mountains Of New York, Let Freedom Ring. From The Heightening Alleghenies Of Pennsylvania, Let Freedom Ring. But Not Only That: Let Freedom Ring From Every Hill And Molehill Of Mississippi.

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We Must Be Concerned Not Merely About Who Murdered Them, But About The System, The Way Of Life, The Philosophy Which Produced The Murderers .

Our Destiny Is Tied Up With The Destiny Of America.

We Can Dream Of An America, And A World, In Which Love And Not Money Are Civilization's Bottom Line.

There Is Within Human Nature An Amazing Potential For Goodness.

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

Eating Breakfast

But I Know, Somehow, That Only When It Is Dark Enough, Can You See The Stars.

If We Are Going To Achieve A Real Equality, The U.s. Will Have To Adopt A Modified Form Of Socialism.

Look To A Day When People Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin.

I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be.

Oppressed People Cannot Remain Oppressed Forever. The Yearning For Freedom Eventually Manifests Itself.

The Supreme Task Is To Organize And Unite People So That Their Anger Becomes A Transforming Force.

It Is Cheerful To God When You Rejoice Or Laugh From The Bottom Of Your Heart.

We Must Accept Finite Disappointment, But Never Lose Infinite Hope.

Riots Are The Voices Of The Unheard.

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal. That Time Has Come For Us In Relation To Vietnam. A Nation That Continues Year After Year To Spend More Money On Military Defense Than On Programs Of Social Uplift, Is Approaching Spiritual Death.i Knew That America Would Never Invest The Necessary Funds Or Energies In Rehabilitation Of Its Poor So Long As Adventures Like Vietnam Continued To Draw Men And Skills And Money Like Some Demonic Destructive Suction Tube. So I Was Increasingly Compelled To See The War As An Enemy Of The Poor.

Be Concerned About Your Brother...eithe R We Go Up Together, Or We Go Down Together.

Will We March Only To The Music Of Time, Or Will We, Risking Criticism And Abuse, March To The Soul-saving Music Of Eternity?

The Greatness Of Man Cannot Be Seen In The Hours Of Comfort And Convenience, But Rather In Moments Of Conflict/adversity

The Strong Man Holds In A Living Blend Strongly Marked Opposites.

Brutality Was Imprisoned In A Lumious Glare Revealing The Naked Truth To The Whole World

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.

I Have Come To See More And More That One Of The Most Decisive Steps That The Negro Can Take Is That Little Walk To The Voting Booth. That Is An Important Step. We've Got To Gain The Ballot, And Through That Gain, Political Power.

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.

Slavery In America Was Perpetuated Not Merely By Human Badness But Also By Human Blindness. ... Men Convinced Themselves That A System That Was So Economically Profitable Must Be Morally Justifiable. ... Science Was Commandeered To Prove The Biological Inferiority Of The Negro. Even Philosophical Logic Was Manipulated [exemplified By] An Aristotlian Syllogism: All Men Are Made In The Image Of God; God, As Everyone Knows, Is Not A Negro; Therefore, The Negro Is Not A Man.

How Hard It Is For People To Live Without Someone To Look Down Upon-really To Look Down Upon. It Is Not Just That They Feel Cheated Out Of Someone To Hate. It Is That They Are Compelled To Look More Closely Into Themselves And What They Don't Like About Themselves.

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

Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

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.

Quietly Endure, Silently Suffer And Patiently Wait.

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

You Have To Keep Moving Forward

Keep Moving Forward

Success, Recognition, And Conformity Are The Bywords Of The Modern World Where Everyone Seems To Crave The Anesthetizing Security Of Being Identified With The Majority.

There May Come A Time When It Will Be Possible For You To Humiliate Your Worst Enemy Or Even To Defeat Him, But In Order To Love The Enemy You Must Not Do It... The Greek Language Has Another Word [for Love]. It Calls It Agape. Agape Is More Than Romantic Love. Agape Is More Than Friendship. Agape Is Understanding, Redemptive Goodwill For All Men. Agape Is An Overflowing Love, A Spontaneous Love, Which Seeks Nothing In Return. And Theologians Would Say That It Is The Love Of God Operating In The Human Heart. When You Rise To Love On This Level You Love All Men, Not Because You Like Them, Not Because Their Ways Appeal To You, Not Because They Are Worthful To You, But You Love All Men Because God Loves Them. And You Rise To The Noble Heights Of Loving The Person Who Does The Evil Deed While Hating The Deed That The Person Does. And I Think This Is What Jesus Means When He Says, “love Your Enemies.”

Violence Ends Up Defeating Itself. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers.

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

Is Is Always Time To Do The Right Thing.

As Marvelous As The Stars Is The Mind Of The Person Who Studies Them.

I Say To You That Our Goal Is Freedom, And I Believe We Are Going To Get There Because However Much She Strays Away From It, The Goal Of America Is Freedom.

The First Question Which The Priest And The Levite Asked Was: 'if I Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Me?' But... The Good Samaritan Reversed The Question: 'if I Do Not Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Him?'

Even Though I Have Never Had An Abrupt Conversion Experience, Religion Has Been Real To Me And Closely Knitted To Life. In Fact The Two Cannot Be Separated; Religion For Me Is Life.

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.

Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity.

Life's Most Persistent And Urgent Question Is: What Are You Doing For Others? Living Is A Form Of Not Being Sure, Not Knowing What Next Or How. The Moment You Know How, You Begin To Die A Little.

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Working Together

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

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The Great Majority Of Americans Are Suspended Between These Opposing Attitudes. They Are Uneasy With Injustice But Unwilling Yet To Pay A Significant Price To Eradicate It.

No One Is Free Until We Are All Free.

They Were Too God-intoxicated To Be "astronomically Intimidated." They Brought An End To Such Ancient Evils As Infanticide And Gladiatorial Contest.

If It Falls Your Lot To Be A Street Sweeper, Sweep Streets As Raphael Painted Pictures, Sweep Streets As Michelangelo Carved Marble, Sweep Streets As Beethoven Composed Music, Or Shakespeare Wrote Poetry.

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Now Is The Time To Lift Our National Policy From The Quicksand Of Racial Injustice To The Solid Rock Of Human Dignity.

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Ten Thousand Fools Proclaim Themselves Into Obscurity, While One Wise Man Forgets Himself Into Immortality.

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

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Education Must Enable One To Sift And Weigh Evidence, To Discern The True From The False, The Real From The Unreal, And The Facts From The Fiction.

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Lord Help Me To See M. L. King As M. L. King In His True Perspective.

One Who Condones Evils Is Just As Guilty As The One Who Perpetrates It.

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Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of War But The Presence Of Justice, Of Law, Of Order —in Short, Of Government.

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From My Christian Formation've Gotten My Ideals And Technique Gandhi Action

A Lie Cannot Live.

Let Us Not Seek To Satisfy Our Thirst For Freedom By Drinking From The Cup Of Bitterness And Hatred.

Unarmed Love Is The Most Powerful Force In All The World.

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

Breaking Silence

We Must Rapidly Begin The Shift From A "thing-oriented" Society To A "person-oriented" Society. When Machines And Computers, Profit Motives And Property Rights Are Considered More Important Than People, The Giant Triplets Of Racism, Materialism, And Militarism Are Incapable Of Being Conquered.

We Stand In Life At Midnight; We Are Always At The Threshold Of A New Dawn.

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.

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.

I May Not Get There With You, But I Believe That We As A People Will Someday Reach The Promised Land.

We Know Of No More Crucial Civil Rights Issue Facing Congress Today Than The Need To Increase The Federal Minimum Wage And Extend Its Coverage.

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.

Nonviolence Is The Answer To The Crucial Political And Moral Questions Of Our Time: The Need For Man To Overcome Oppression And Violence Without Resorting To Oppression And Violence. Man Must Evolve For All Human Conflict A Method Which Rejects Revenge, Aggression And Retaliation. The Foundation Of Such A Method Is Love.

Never Again Can We Afford To Live With The Narrow, Provincial "outside Agitator" Idea. Anyone Who Lives Inside The United States Can Never Be Considered An Outsider.

Moral Principles Have Lost Their Distinctiveness. For Modern Man, Absolute Right And Absolute Wrong Are A Matter Of What The Majority Is Doing.

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.

I Question And Soul-search Constantly Into Myself To Be As Certain As I Can That I Am Fulfilling The True Meaning Of My Work, That I Am Maintaining My Sense Of Purpose, That I Am Holding Fast To My Ideals, That I Am Guiding My People In The Right Direction.

A Social Movement That Only Moves People Is Merely A Revolt. A Movement That Changes Both People And Institutions Is A Revolution.

I Know That God Is Not Going To Willfully Hurt Us. Why There Is Suffering Is The Business Of The Lord, But He Never Seems To Give Us More Than We Can Bear.

We Must Discover The Power Of Love, The Power, The Redemptive Power Of Love. And When We Discover That We Will Be Able To Make Of This Old World A New World. We Will Be Able To Make Men Better. Love Is The Only Way.

Somehow This Madness Must Cease. We Must Stop Now. I Speak As A Child Of God And Brother To The Suffering Poor Of Vietnam. I Speak For Those Whose Land Is Being Laid Waste, Whose Homes Are Being Destroyed, Whose Culture Is Being Subverted. I Speak For The Poor In America Who Are Paying The Double Price Of Smashed Hopes At Home And Death And Corruption In Vietnam. I Speak As A Citizen Of The World, For The World As It Stands Aghast At The Path We Have Taken. I Speak As An American To The Leaders Of My Own Nation. The Great Initiative In This War Is Ours. The Initiative To Stop It Must Be Ours.

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.

What Good Does It Do To Sit At The Counter When You Cannot Afford A Hamburger?

Economic Inequality

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.

Ultimately A Great Nation Is A Compassionate Nation.

What Are You Doing For Others?

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.

I Am Convinced That...in The Struggle For Righteousness Man Has Cosmic Companionship.

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

Often The Oppressor Goes Along Unaware Of The Evil Involved In His Oppression So Long As The Oppressed Accepts It.

Do To Us What You Will, And We Will Still Love You. Bomb Our Homes And Threaten Our Children, And As Difficult As It Is, We Will Still Love You. But We Assured That We'll Wear You Down By Our Capacity To Suffer, And One Day We Will Win Our Freedom. We Will Not Only Win Freedom For Ourselves, We Will So Appeal To Your Heart And Conscience That We Will Win You In The Process, And Our Victory Will Be A Double Victory.

The Negro Is The Child Of Two Cultures - Africa And America. The Problem Is That In The Search For Wholeness All Too Many Negroes Seek To Embrace Only One Side Of Their Natures.

I Also Came To See That Liberalism's Superficial Optimism Concerning Human Nature Caused It To Overlook The Fact That Reason Is Darkened By Sin. The More I Thought About Human Nature The More I Saw How Our Tragic Inclination For Sin Causes Us To Use Our Minds To Rationalize Our Actions. Liberalism Failed To See That Reason By Itself Is Little More Than An Instrument To Justify Man's Defensive Ways Of Thinking. Reason, Devoid Of The Purifying Power Of Faith, Can Never Free Itself From Distortions And Rationalizations.

All Too Many Of Those Who Live In Affluent America Ignore Those Who Exist In Poor America; In Doing So, The Affluent Americans Will Eventually Have To Face Themselves With The Question That Eichman Chose To Ignore: How Responsible Am I For The Well-being Of My Fellows?

What Affects One In A Major Way, Affects All In A Minor Way.

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.

The Oppressed Must Never Allow The Conscience Of The Oppressor To Slumber. Religion Reminds Every Man That He Is His Brother's Keeper.

Actually, We Who Engage In Nonviolent Direct Action Are Not The Creators Of Tension. We Merely Bring To The Surface The Hidden Tension That Is Already Alive. We Bring It Out In The Open, Where It Can Be Seen And Dealt With. Like A Boil That Can Never Be Cured So Long As It Is Covered Up But Must Be Opened With An Its Ugliness To The Natural Medicines Of Air And Light, Injustice Must Be Exposed, With All The Tension Its Exposure Creates, To The Light Of Human Conscience And The Air Of National Opinion Before It Can Be Cured.

I Often Feel Like Saying, When I Hear The Question 'people Aren't Ready,' That It's Like Telling A Person Who Is Trying To Swim, 'don't Jump In That Water Until You Learn How To Swim.' When Actually You Will Never Learn How To Swim Until You Get In The Water. And I Think People Have To Have An Opportunity To Develop Themselves And Govern Themselves.

We Must Build Dikes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear. That Old Law About "an Eye For An Eye" Leaves Everybody Blind... The Time Is Always Right To Do The Right Thing. Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

The Best Way To Solve Any Problem Is To Remove Its Cause.

Just As It Is The Duty Of All Men To Obey Just Laws, So It Is The Duty Of All Men To Disobey Unjust Laws.

Freedom Is One Thing. You Have It All Or You Are Not Free.

School Takes 13 Years, Because That Is How Long It Takes To Break A Child's Spirit.

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.

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

The Greatness Of Our God Lies In The Fact That [he] Is Both Tough Minded And Tender Hearted.

Many People Fear Nothing More Terribly Than To Take A Position Which Stands Out Sharply And Clearly From The Prevailing Opinion. The Tendency Of Most Is To Adopt A View That Is So Ambiguous That It Will Include Everything And So Popular That It Will Include Everybody. Not A Few Men Who Cherish Lofty And Noble Ideals Hide Them Under A Bushel For Fear Of Being Called Different.

Personality Is Like A Charioteer With Two Headstrong Horses, Each Wanting To Go In Different Directions.

This Is The Great New Problem Of Mankind. We Have Inherited A Large House, A Great ‘world House’ In Which We Have To Live Together– Black And White, Easterner And Westerner, Gentile And Jew, Catholic And Protestant, Muslim And Hindu– A Family Unduly Separated In Ideas, Culture And Interest, Who, Because We Can Never Again Live Apart, Must Learn Somehow To Live With Each Other In Peace.

Black And White

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

There May Have Been A Time When War Served As A Negative Good By Preventing The Spread And Growth Of An Evil Force, But The Destructive Power Of Modern Weapons Eliminates Even The Possibility That War May Serve As A Negative Good.

For Years Now I Have Heard The Word "wait." It Rings In The Ear Of Every Negro With A Piercing Familiarity. This "wait" Has Almost Always Meant "never."

True Sympathy Is The Personal Concern Which Demands The Giving Of One's Soul.

Even In The Inevitable Moments When All Seems Hopeless, Men Know That Without Hope They Cannot Really Live, And In Agonizing Desperation They Cry For The Bread Of Hope.

The True Neighbor Will Risk His Position, His Prestige, And Even His Life For The Welfare Of Others.

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Becoming Bitter. As You Press For Justice, Be Sure To Move With Dignity And Discipline, Using Only The Instruments Of Love.

And You Know, It's Possible That The Priest And The Levite Looked Over That Man On The Ground And Wondered If The Robbers Were Still Around. Or It's Possible That They Felt That The Man On The Ground Was Merely Faking. And He Was Acting Like He Had Been Robbed And Hurt, In Order To Seize Them Over There, Lure Them There For Quick And Easy Seizure. And So The First Question That The Levite Asked Was, "if I Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Me?" But Then The Good Samaritan Came By. And He Reversed The Question: "if I Do Not Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Him?

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.

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.

We Have No Honorable Intentions In Vietnam. Our Minimal Expectation Is To Occupy It As An American Colony And Maintain Social Stability For Our Investments. This Tells Why American Helicopters Are Being Used Against Guerrillas In Colombia And Peru. Increasingly The Role Our Nation Has Taken Is The Role Of Those Who Refuse To Give Up The Privileges And Pleasures That Come From The Immense Profits Of Overseas Investment.

In The Current Struggle, There Is One Positive Course Of Action. There Is No Alternative, For The Alternative Would Connote A Rear March.

A Nation That Will Keep People In Slavery For 244 Years Will "thingify" Them And Make Them Things. And Therefore, They Will Exploit Them And Poor People Generally Economically. And A Nation That Will Exploit Economically Will Have To Have Foreign Investments And Everything Else, And It Will Have To Use Its Military Might To Protect Them. All Of These Problems Are Tied Together. What I'm Saying Today Is That We Must Go From This Convention And Say, "america, You Must Be Born Again!"

History Will Have To Recordthat The Greatest Tragedy Of This Period Of Social Transitionwas Not The Vitriolic Words And The Violent Actions Of The Bad Peoplebut The Appalling Silence And Indifference Of The Good.our Generation Will Have To Repent Notonly For The Words And Actions Of The Children Of Darknessbut Also For The Fears And Apathy Of Thechildren Of Light.

We Must Learn To Live Together As Brothers Or Perish Together As Fools.

We Have Before Us The Glorious Opportunity To Inject A New Dimension Of Love Into The Veins Of Our Civilization.

These Are The Times For Real Choices And Not False Ones. We Are At The Moment When Our Lives Must Be Placed On The Line If Our Nation Is To Survive Its Own Folly. Every Man Of Humane Convictions Must Decide On The Protest That Best Suits His Convictions, But We Must All Protest.

We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now. In This Unfolding Conundrum Of Life And History, There Is Such A Thing As Being Too Late. Procrastination Is Still The Thief Of Time. Life Often Leaves Us Standing Bare, Naked, And Dejected With A Lost Opportunity. . . . Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residues Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words, 'too Late.' ... Now Let Us Begin. Now Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To The Long And Bitter, But Beautiful, Struggle For A New World.

Procrastination

Black Power Alone Is No More Insurance Against Social Injustice Than White Power.

I Still Have A Dream Today That One Day War Will Come To An End, That Men Will Beat Their Swords Into Plowshares And Their Spears Into Pruning Hooks, That Nations Will No Longer Rise Up Against Nations, Neither Will They Study War Any More.

If A Man Hasn't Discovered Something That He Will Die For, He Isn't Fit To Live.

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

In Our Society, It Is Psychological Murder To Deprive A Man Of A Job...you Are In Substance Saying To That Man "you Have No Right To Exist.

Without Love, Benevolence Becomes Egotism.

Life's Most Persistent And Urgent Question Is, 'what Are You Doing For Others?'

Returning Violence For Violence Multiplies Violence, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars.

I Know That Love Is Ultimately The Only Answer To Mankind's Problems. And I'm Going To Talk About It Everywhere I Go. I Know It Isn't Popular To Talk About It In Some Circles Today. I'm Not Talking About Emotional Bosh When I Talk About Love, I'm Talking About A Strong, Demanding Love.

I Will Always Remember My Delight When Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - An Unlettered Woman Of Unusual Intelligence - Told How An Operator Demanded That She Get Off The Bus After Paying Her Fare And Board It Again By The Back Door, And Then Drove Away Before She Could Get There. She Turned To Judge Carter And Said: "when They Count The Money, They Do Not Know Negro Money From White Money.

Before You Finish Eating Breakfast In The Morning, You've Depended On More Than Half Of The World.

What Seems So Necessary Today May Not Even Be Desirable Tomorrow.

Love Is The Only Force Capable Of Transforming An Enemy Into Friend.

We Must Substitute Courage For Caution.

It's Not The Violence Of The Few That Scares Me, It's The Silence Of The Many

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There Comes A Time When One Must Take The Position That Is Neither Safe Nor Politic Nor Popular, But He Must Do It Because Conscience Tells Him It Is Right.

Courage Faces Fear And Thereby Masters It. Cowardice Represses Fear And Is Thereby Mastered By It.

Let Us Develop A Kind Of Dangerous Unselfishness.

The Time Is Always Right To Do What Is Right.

We Can Either Walk The Highroad Of Brotherhood Or The Low Road Of Man's Inhumanity To Man.

Inhumanity To Man

I Am Now Convinced That The Simplest Approach Will Prove To Be The Most Effective -- The Solution To Poverty Is To Abolish It Directly By A Now Widely Discussed Measure: The Guaranteed Income.

When People Criticize Zionists, They Mean Jews. You Are Talking Anti-semitism.

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Everybody Can Be Great, Because Everybody Can Serve. [...] You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace.

We Must Learn That To Expect God To Do Everything While We Do Nothing Is Not Faith But Superstition.

We Live In A World Of Guided Missiles And Misguided Men.

Capital Punishment Is Against The Best Judgment Of Modern Criminology And, Above All, Against The Highest Expression Of Love In The Nature Of God.

I Still Believe That One Day Mankind Will Bow Before The Altars Of God And Be Crowned Triumphant Over War And Bloodshed, And Nonviolent Redemptive Goodwill Will Proclaim The Rule Of The Land.

Vanity Asks, Is It Popular? Politics Ask, Will It Work? But Conscience And Morality Ask, Is It Right?

I Have The Audacity To Believe That Peoples Everywhere Can Have Three Meals A Day For Their Bodies, Education And Culture For Their Minds, And Dignity, Equality And Freedom For Their Spirits. I Believe That What Self-centered Men Have Torn Down Men Other-centered Can Build Up. I Still Believe That One Day Mankind Will Bow Before The Altars Of God And Be Crowned Triumphant Over War And Bloodshed, And Nonviolent Redemptive Good Will Proclaim The Rule Of The Land.

Set Yourself Earnestly To Discover What You Are Made To Do, And Then Give Yourself Passionately To The Doing Of It.

To Have Peace In The World, Men & Nations Must Embrace The Nonviolent Assertion That Ends And Means Must Cohere.

If I Hit You And You Hit Me And I Hit You Back And You Hit Me Back And Go On, You See, That Goes On Ad Infinitum. It Just Never Ends. Somewhere Somebody Must Have A Little Sense, And That's The Strong Person.

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!

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

Christianity Affirms That At The Heart Of Reality Is A Heart, A Loving Father Who Works Through History For The Salvation Of His Children. Man Cannot Save Himself, For Man Is Not The Measure Of All Things And Humanity Is Not God. Bound By The Chains Of His Own Sin And Finiteness, Man Needs A Savior.

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.

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Bitterness.

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.

Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think

The Words 'bad Timing' Came To Be Ghosts Haunting Our Every Move In Birmingham. Yet People Who Used This Argument Were Ignorant Of The Background Of Our Planning...they Did Not Realize That It Was Ridiculous To Speak Of Timing When The Clock Of History Showed That The Negro Had Already Suffered One Hundred Years Of Delay.

History Is A Great Teacher. Now Everyone Knows That The Labor Movement Did Not Diminish The Strength Of The Nation But Enlarged It. By Raising The Living Standards Of Millions, Labor Miraculously Created A Market For Industry And Lifted The Whole Nation To Undreamed Of Levels Of Production. Those Who Attack Labor Forget These Simple Truths, But History Remembers Them.

Labour Movement

Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater. [...] When You Start Hating Anybody, It Destroys The Very Center Of Your Creative Response To Life And The Universe; So Love Everybody.

The Function Of Education, Therefore, Is To Teach One To Think Intensively And To Think Critically. But Education Which Stops With Efficiency May Prove The Greatest Menace To Society. The Most Dangerous Criminal May Be The Man Gifted With Reason, But With No Morals.

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.

Education Without Social Action Is A One-sided Value Because It Has No True Power Potential. Social Action Without Education Is A Weak Expression Of Pure Energy. Deeds Uninformed By Educated Thought Can Take False Directions. When We Go Into Action And Confront Our Adversaries, We Must Be As Armed With Knowledge As They. Our Policies Should Have The Strength Of Deep Analysis Beneath Them To Be Able To Challenge The Clever Sophistries Of Our Opponents.

We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

It Is Incontestable And Deplorable That Negroes Have Committed Crimes; But They Are Derivative Crimes. They Are Born Of The Greater Crimes Of The White Society.

We Must Stand Up And Say, "i'm Black And I'm Beautiful," And This Self-affirmation Is The Black Man's Need, Made Compelling By The White Man's Crimes Against Him.

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

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

But There Is Another Way. And That Is To Organize Mass Non-violent Resistance Based On The Principle Of Love. It Seems To Me That This Is The Only Way As Our Eyes Look To The Future. As We Look Out Across The Years And Across The Generations, Let Us Develop And Move Right Here. We Must Discover The Power Of Love, The Power, The Redemptive Power Of Love. And When We Discover That We Will Be Able To Make Of This Old World A New World. We Will Be Able To Make Men Better. Love Is The Only Way.

I Was Much More Afraid In Montgomery When I Had A Gun In My House. When I Decided That I Couldn’t Keep A Gun, I Came Face-to-face With The Question Of Death And I Dealt With It. From That Point On, I No Longer Needed A Gun Nor Have I Been Afraid. Had We Become Distracted By The Question Of My Safety We Would Have Lost The Moral Offensive And Sunk To The Level Of Our Oppressors.

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Melina Mercouri

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