Background Image

...

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.

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Always Had A

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.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Time Has Come For America To Hear The Truth About This Tragic War. In International Conflicts, The Truth Is Hard To Come By Because Most Nations Are Deceived About Themselves. Rationalizations And The Incessant Search For Scapegoats Are The Psychological Cataracts That Blind Us To Our Sins. But The Day Has Passed For Superficial Patriotism. He Who Lives With Untruth Lives In Spiritual Slavery.

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

I Have A Dream That One Day Every Valley Shall Be Exalted, Every Hill And Mountain Shall Be Made Low, The Rough Places Will Be Made Straight And The Glory Of The Lord Shall Be Revealed And All Flesh Shall See It Together.

I'm Concerned About A Better World. I'm Concerned About Justice; I'm Concerned About Brotherhood; I'm Concerned About Truth. And When One Is Concerned About That, He Can Never Advocate Violence. For Through Violence You May Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder. Through Violence You May Murder A Liar, But You Can't Establish Truth. Through Violence You May Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate Through Violence. Darkness Cannot Put Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That.

We Are Prone To Judge Success By The Index Of Our Salaries Or The Size Of Our Automobiles Rather Than By The Quality Of Our Service And Relationship To Mankind.

Law And Order Exist For The Purpose Of Establishing Justice And When They Fail In This Purpose They Become The Dangerously Structured Dams That Block The Flow Of Social Progress.

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

There Is Nothing In All The World Greater Than Freedom. It Is Worth Paying For; It Is Worth Going To Jail For. I Would Rather Be A Free Pauper Than A Rich Slave. I Would Rather Die In Abject Poverty With My Convictions Than Live In Inordinate Riches With The Lack Of Self Respect.

I Could Never Again Raise My Voice Against The Violence Of The Oppressed, Without Having First Spoken Clearly To The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World Today – My Own Government.

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.

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.

Morality Cannot Be Legislated, But Behavior Can Be Regulated. Judicial Decrees May Not Change The Heart, But They Can Restrain The Heartless.

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

Eating Breakfast

At The Heart Of All That Civilization Has Meant And Developed Is 'community' - The Mutually Cooperative And Voluntary Venture Of Man To Assume A Semblance Of Responsibility For His Brother.

Is Is Always Time To Do The Right Thing.

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars. Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate; Only Love Can Do That.

The Negro Has No Room To Make Any Substantial Compromises Because His Store Of Advantages Is Too Small. He Must Press Unrelentingly For Quality, Integrated Education Or His Whole Drive For Freedom Will Be Undermined By The Absence Of A Most Vital And Indispensable Element - Learning.

Hatred Darkens Life; Love Illumines It.

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.

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.

I Am Cognizant Of The Interrelatedness Of All Communities And States. I Cannot Sit Idly By In Atlanta And Not Be Concerned About What Happens In Birmingham. Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere. We Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tied In A Single Garment Of Destiny. Whatever Affects One Directly, Affects All Indirectly. Never Again Can We Afford To Live With The Narrow, Provincial "outside Agitator" Idea.

When Negroes Looked For The Second Phase, The Realization Of Equality, They Found That Many Of Their White Allies Had Quietly Disappeared.... To Stay Murder Is Not The Same Thing As To Ordain Brotherhood.

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.

We Are Called Upon To Help The Discouraged Beggars In Life's Marketplace. But One Day We Must Come To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring.

Whenever You Are Engaged In Work That Serves Humanity And Is For The Building Of Humanity, It Has Dignity And It Has Worth.

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

I Think If We, Say, If All Of The Major Leaders In This Struggle [for Human's Rights] Were At, At War With Each Other, Then I Think It Would Be Very Difficult To Make This Social Revolution The Kind Of Powerful Revolution That It's Proved To Be.

We Who In Engage In Nonviolent Direct Action Are Not The Creators Of Tension. We Merely Bring To The Surface The Hidden Tension That Is Already Alive.

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

It May Be True That The Law Cannot Change The Heart But It Can Restrain The Heartless.

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.

A Productive And Happy Life Is Not Something You Find; It Is Something You Make.

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal. Even When Pressed By The Demands Of Inner Truth, Men Do Not Easily Assume The Task Of Opposing Their Government's Policy, Especially In Time Of War. Nor Does The Human Spirit Move Without Great Difficulty Against All The Apathy Of Conformist Thought, Within One's Own Bosom And In The Surrounding World.

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.

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

Every Crisis Has Both Its Dangers And Its Opportunities. Each Can Spell Either Salvation Or Doom.

We Can No Longer Afford To Worship The God Of Hate Or Bow Before The Altar Of Retaliation. The Oceans Of History Are Made Turbulent By The Ever-rising Tides Of Hate. History Is Cluttered With The Wreckage Of Nations And Individuals That Pursued This Self-defeating Path Of Hate. Love Is The Key To The Solution Of The Problems Of The World.

We Ain't Goin' Study War No More.

We Are All Tied Together In A Single Garment Of Destiny . . . I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are Allowed To Be What You Ought To Be.

We Must Recognize That We Can't Solve Our Problems Now Until There Is A Radical Redistribution Of Economic And Political Power.... A Radical Restructuring Of The Architecture Of American Society.

There Is A More Excellent Way, Of Love And Nonviolent Protest.

A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Cause Us To Question The Fairness And Justice Of Many Of Our Present Policies... True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar. A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Look On Uneasily Upon The Glaring Contrast Of Poverty And Wealth With Righteous Indignation.

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.

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Bitterness.

Oh, The Worst Of All Tragedies Is Not To Die Young, But To Live Until I Am Seventy Five And Yet Not Ever Truly To Have Lived.

Mass Civil Disobedience Can Use Rage As A Constructive And Creative Force.

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

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

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.

Nothing Degrades A Man Do More Than The Allowed Stoop So Low As To Hate Someone

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.

Jesus Christ Was An Extremist For Love, Truth And Goodness.

Don't Let Anybody Make You Think That God Chose America As His Divine, Messianic Force To Be A Sort Of Policeman Of The Whole World.

Wars Are Poor Chisels For Carving Out Peaceful Tomorrows.

Occasionally In Life There Are Those Moments Of Unutterable Fulfillment Which Cannot Be Completely Explained By Those Symbols Called Words. Their Meanings Can Only Be Articulated By The Inaudible Language Of The Heart.

Injustice And Corruption Will Never Be Transformed By Keeping Them Hidden, But Only By Bringing Them Out Into The Light And Confronting Them With The Power Of Love.

Those Who Love Peace Must Learn To Organize As Effectively As Those Who Love War.

We Are Now Faced With The Fact 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. This Is No Time For Apathy Or Complacency. This Is A Time For Vigorous And Postive Action.

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy... In Fact, Violence Merely Increases Hate. So It Goes. Returning Violence For Violence Multiplies Violence, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars.

We Decided To Set Our Direct-action Program Around The Easter Season, Realizing That, With Exception Of Christmas, This Was The Largest Shopping Period Of The Year. Knowing That A Strong Economic Withdrawal Program Would Be The By-product Of Direct Action.

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.

We Must Combine The Toughness Of The Serpent With The Softness Of The Dove, A Tough Mind And A Tender Heart.

If An American Is Concerned Only About His Nation, He Will Not Be Concerned About The Peoples Of Asia, Africa, Or South America. Is This Not Why Nations Engage In The Madness Of War Without The Slightest Sense Of Penitence? Is This Not Why The Murder Of A Citizen Of Your Own Nation Is A Crime, But The Murder Of Citizens Of Another Nation In War Is An Act Of Heroic Virtue?

[w]e Are The Heirs Of A Past Of Rope, Fire, And Murder. I For One Am Not Ashamed Of This Past. My Shame Is For Those Who Became So Inhuman That They Could Inflict This Torture Upon Us.

But Though I Was Initially Disappointed At Being Categorized As An Extremist, As I Continued To Think About The Matter I Gradually Gained A Measure Of Satisfaction From The Label. Was Not Jesus An Extremist For Love: “love Your Enemies, Bless Them That Curse You, Do Good To Them That Hate You, And Pray For Them Which Despitefully Use You, And Persecute You.”

We Have Flown The Air Like Birds And Swum The Sea Like Fishes, But Have Yet To Learn The Simple Act Of Walking The Earth Like Brothers.

We Must Come To See That The End We Seek Is A Society At Peace With Itself, A Society That Can Live With Its Conscience.

The Failures Of The Past Must Not Be An Excuse For The Inaction Of The Present And The Future.

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.

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

When Any Society Says That I Cannot Marry A Certain Person, That Society Has Cut Off A Segment Of My Freedom.

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?

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.

Gandhi Was Inevitable. If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable. He Lived, Thought And Acted, Inspired By The Vision Of Humanity Evolving Toward A World Of Peace And Harmony. We May Ignore Gandhi At Our Own Risk.

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.

As I Like To Say To The People In Montgomery: "the Tension In This City Is Not Between White People And Negro People. The Tension Is, At Bottom, Between Justice And Injustice, Between The Forces Of Light And The Forces Of Darkness.

I Just Want To Be There In Love And In Justice And In Truth And In Commitment To Others, So That We Can Make Of This Old World A New World.

We Have Genuflected Before The God Of Science Only To Find That It Has Given Us The Atomic Bomb, Producing Fears And Anxieties That Science Can Never Mitigate.

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.

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

In A Sense We've Come To Our Nation's Capital To Cash A Check. When The Architects Of Our Republic Wrote The Magnificent Words Of The Constitution And The Declaration Of Independence, They Were Signing A Promissory Note To Which Every American Was To Fall Heir. This Note Was A Promise That All Men - Yes, Black Men As Well As White Men - Would Be Guaranteed The Unalienable Rights Of Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness... America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

Pursuit Of Happiness

Your Self-image Should Not Come From The Job You Do But From How Well You Do Your Job.

When A Nation Becomes Obsessed With The Guns Of War, It Loses Its Social Perspective.... There Is Something About A War Like This That Makes People Insensitive. It Dulls The Conscience. It Strengthens The Forces Of Reaction, And It Brings Into Being Bitterness And Hatred And Violence.

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

History Will Have To Record That The Greatest Tragedy Of This Period Of Social Transition Was Not The Strident Clamor Of The Bad People, But The Appalling Silence Of The Good People.

Bad Relationship

I Am Not Afraid Of The Word Tension.

Creative Tension

Many Of The Ugly Pages Of American History Have Been Obscured And Forgotten. 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. 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.

The Poor Never Get The Job Done They Are Sleepy.

To Put It In The Terms Of St. Thomas Aquinas: An Unjust Law Is A Human Law That Is Not Rooted In Eternal Law And Natural Law.

We All Can't Be Famous But We Can All Be Great And We Become Great When We Serve Others

Knowledge Is A Process Of Piling Up Facts; Wisdom Lies In Their Simplification.

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

One Who Breaks An Unjust Law That Conscience Tells Him Is Unjust ... Is In Reality Expressing The Highest Respect For Law ... We Will Not Obey Your Evil Laws.

The Saving Of Our World From Pending Doom Will Come, Not Through The Complacent Adjustment Of The Conforming Majority, But Through The Creative Maladjustment Of A Nonconforming Minority.

One Day We Will Learn That The Heart Can Never Be Totally Right When The Head Is Totally Wrong

Like Anybody, I Would Like To Have A Long Life. Longevity Has Its Place. But I'm Not Concerned About That Now. I Just Want To Do God's Will.

We Will Not Be Satisfied Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters.

I Have A Dream Speech

I Had A Very Depressing Response Because I Realized That These Were My Own People, These Were Negroes Throwing Eggs At Me. I'm Concerned About The Fact That Maybe All Of Us Have Contributed To This By Not Working Harder To Get Rid Of The Conditions, The Poverty, The Social Isolation, And All Of The Conditions That Cause Individuals To Respond Like This.

To Accept Injustice Or Segregation Passively Is To Say To The Oppressor That His Actions Are Morally Right.

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.

We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

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

Whom You Would Change, You Must First Love.

As A Teenager I Had Never Been Able To Accept The Fact Of Having To Go To The Back Of A Bus Or Sit In The Segregated Section Of A Train. The First Time I Had Been Seated Behind A Curtain In A Dining Car, I Felt As If The Curtain Had Been Dropped On My Selfhood.

Let Us Not Wallow In The Valley Of Despair.

I Have A Dream Speech

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.

There Is Some Good In The Worst Of Us, And Some Evil In The Best Of Us.

The Only Time People Do Not Like Praise Is When Too Much Of It Is Going Toward Someone Else.

I'm Thinking Of Love In Action And Not Something Where You Say, "love Your Enemies," And Just Leave It At That, But You Love Your Enemies To The Point That You're Willing To Sit-in At A Lunch Counter In Order To Help Them Find Themselves. You're Willing To Go To Jail.

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

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

The Principle Of Nonviolent Resistance Seeks To Reconcile The Truths Of Two Opposites-acquiescence And Violence -while Avoiding The Extremes And Immoralities Of Both.

If I Can Help Somebody As I Pass Along, If I Can Cheer Somebody With A Word Or Song, If I Can Show Somebody He's Traveling Wrong, Then My Living Will Not Be In Vain.

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

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.

We Cannot Walk Alone.

Our Scientific Power Has Outrun Our Spiritual Power. We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men. Our Hope For Creative Living Lies In Our Ability To Reestablish The Spiritual Needs Of Our Lives In Personal Character And Social Justice. Without This Spiritual And Moral Reawakening We Shall Destroy Ourselves In The Misuse Of Our Own Instruments.

The Richer We Have Become Materially, The Poorer We Become Morally And Spiritually. We Have Learned To Fly In The Air Like Birds And Swim In The Sea Like Fish, But We Have Not Learned The Simple Art Of Living Together As Brothers.

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.

I Have A Dream That My Four Little Children Will One Day Live In A Nation Where They Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin, But By The Content Of Their Character.

The End Of Life Is Not To Be Happy, Nor To Achieve Pleasure And Avoid Pain, But To Do The Will Of God, Come What May.

[e]very Human Life Is A Reflection Of Divinity, And... Every Act Of Injustice Mars And Defaces The Image Of God In Man.

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

Capitalism Does Not Permit An Even Flow Of Economic Resources. With This System, A Small Privileged Few Are Rich Beyond Conscience, And Almost All Others Are Doomed To Be Poor At Some Level. That's The Way The System Works. And Since We Know That The System Will Not Change The Rules, We Are Going To Have To Change The System.

The Time Is Always Right To Do What Is Right.

A Piece Of Freedom Is No Longer Enough For Human Beings...unlike Bread, A Slice Of Liberty Does Not Finish Hunger. Freedom Is Like Life. It Cannot Be Had In Installments. Freedom Is Indivisible--we Have It All, Or We Are Not Free.

To Dislocate The Functioning Of A City Without Destroying It Can Be More Effective Than A Riot Because It Can Be Longer-lasting, Costly To The Society But Not Wantonly Destructive, Moreover, It Is More Difficult For Government To Quell It By Superior Force.

Nothing Is So Much Needed As A Secure Family Life For A People Seeking To Rise Out Of Poverty And Backwardness.

Violence Never Really Deals With The Basic Evil Of The Situation. Violence May Murder The Murderer, But It Doesn’t Murder Murder. Violence May Murder The Liar, But It Doesn’t Murder Lie; It Doesn’t Establish Truth. Violence May Even Murder The Dishonest Man, But It Doesn’t Murder Dishonesty. Violence May Go To The Point Of Murdering The Hater, But It Doesn’t Murder Hate. It May Increase Hate. It Is Always A Descending Spiral Leading Nowhere. This Is The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence: It Multiplies Evil And Violence In The Universe. It Doesn’t Solve Any Problems.

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

If A Man Has Not Discovered Anything So Dying Is Not Worth Living

Each Of Us Is Something Of A Schizophrenic Personality, Tragically Divided Against Ourselves.

In Our Society It Is Murder, Psychologically, To Deprive A Man Of A Job Or An Income. You Are In Substance Saying To That Man That He Has No Right To Exist. You Are In A Real Way Depriving Him Of Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness, Denying In His Case The Very Creed Of His Society.

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!

He Who Is Devoid Of The Power To Forgive Is Devoid Of The Power To Love.

Whatever We Do, We Must Keep God In The Forefront. Let Us Be Christian In All Of Our Actions. But I Want To Tell You This Evening That It Is Not Enough For Us To Talk About Love, Love Is One Of The Pivotal Points Of The Christian Face, Faith. There Is Another Side Called Justice. And Justice Is Really Love In Calculation. Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

Without Hard Work, Time Itself Becomes An Ally Of The Primitive Forces Of Social Stagnation. So We Must Help Time And Realize That The Time Is Always Ripe To Do Right.

A Just Law Is A Man-made Code That Squares With The Moral Law, Or The Law Of God. An Unjust Law Is A Code That Is Out Of Harmony With The Moral Law.

When Our Days Become Dreary With Low Hovering Clouds Of Despair, And When Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, Let Us Remember That There Is A Creative Force In This Universe, Working To Pull Down The Gigantic Mountains Of Evil, A Power That Is Able To Make A Way Out Of No Way And Transform Dark Yesterdays Into Bright Tomorrows. Let Us Realize The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

I Was Convinced That Worship At Its Best Is A Social Experience With People Of All Levels Of Life Coming Together To Realize Their Oneness And Unity Under God. Whenever The Church, Consciously Or Unconsciously, Caters To One Class It Loses The Spiritual Force Of The "whosoever Will, Let Him Come, Doctrine And Is In Danger Of Becoming A Little More Than A Social Club With A Thin Veneer Of Religiosity."

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

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

The Time Has Come For An All-out War Against Poverty. The Rich Nations Must Use Their Vast Resources Of Wealth To Develop The Underdeveloped, School The Unschooled, And Feed The Unfed. Ultimately A Great Nation Is A Compassionate Nation. No Individual Or Nation Can Be Great If It Does Not Have A Concern For "the Least Of These".

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.

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.

We Still Have A Choice Today: Nonviolence Coesistence Or Violent Coannihilation.

And I Say To You, I Have Decided To Stick With Love, For I Know That Love Is Ultimately The Only Answer To Mankind's Problems. And I'm Going To Talk About It Everywhere I Go. For I Have Seen Too Much Hate... Every Time I See It, I Know That It Does Something To Their Faces And Their Personalities, And I Say To Myself That Hate Is Too Great A Burden To Bear. I Have Decided To Love.

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

I Have Decided To Love. If You Are Seeking The Highest Good, I Think You Can Find It Through Love. God Is Love.

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

The Government Can't Make People Love Me, But It Can Keep Them From Lynching Me.

I Knew That America Would Never Invest The Necessary Funds Of Energies In Rehabilitation Of Its Poor As Long As Adventures Like Vietnam Continued To Draw Men And Skills And Money Like Some Demonic Destructive Suction Tube.

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

Even If Our Motives Are Presently Misunderstood. We Will Reach The Goal Of Freedom In Birmingham And All Over The Nation, Because The Goal Of America Is Freedom.

We Must Build Dikes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear.

We Must Move Forward In The Days Ahead With Audacious Faith. The Moral Arc Of The Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

Wisdom Born Of Experience Should Tell Us That War Is Obsolete. There May Have Been A Time When War Served As A Negative Good By Preventing The Spread And Growth Of An Evil Force If We Assume That Life Is Worth Living, If We Assume That Mankind Has The Right To Survive, Then We Must Find An Alternative To War.

In Our Struggle Against Racial Segregation In Montgomery, Alabama, I Came To See At A Very Early Stage That A Synthesis Of Gandhi's Method Of Nonviolence And The Christian Ethic Of Love Is The Best Weapon Available To Negroes For This Struggle For Freedom And Human Dignity. It May Well Be That The Gandhian Approach Will Bring About A Solution To The Race Problem In America. His Spirit Is A Continual Reminder To Oppressed People That It Is Possible To Resist Evil And Yet Not Resort To Violence.

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

Before The Pilgrims Landed At Plymouth, We Were Here. Before The Pen Of Jefferson Etched Across The Pages Of History The Majestic Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, We Were Here. If The Inexpressible Cruelties Of Slavery Could Not Stop Us, The Opposition We Now Face Will Surely Fail. We Will Win Our Freedom Because The Sacred Heritage Of Our Nation And The Eternal Will Of God Are Embodied In Our Echoing Demands.

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.

Every Word And Deed Must Contribute To An Understanding With The Enemy And Release Those Vast Reservoirs Of Goodwill Which Have Been Blocked By Impenetrable Walls Of Hate.

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

The Body Is God's Temple, But We Are To Worship God, Not The Temple.

We Must Use Time Creatively.

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'.

The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

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.

I Could Never Adjust To The Separate Waiting Rooms, Separate Eating Places, Separate Rest Rooms, Partly Because The Separate Was Always Unequal, And Partly Because The Very Idea Of Separation Did Something To My Sense Of Dignity And Self-respect.

Our Goal Is To Create A Beloved Community," Said Dr. King, "and This Will Require A Qualitative Change In Our Souls As Well As A Quantitative Change In Our Lives.

Beloved Community

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.

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?'

Hate Is Just As Injurious To The Hater As It Is To The Hated. Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity. Many Of Our Inner Conflicts Are Rooted In Hate. This Is Why The Psychiatrists Say, "love Or Perish." Hate Is Too Great A Burden To Bear.

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

Be Sure To Play "blessed Lord" Tonight - Play It Real Pretty.

You Can't Talk About Solving The Economic Problem Of The Negro Without Talking About Billions Of Dollars. You Can't Talk About Ending The Slums Without First Saying Profit Must Be Taken Out Of The Slums. You're Really Tampering And Getting On Dangerous Ground Because You Are Messing With Folk Then. You Are Messing With Captains Of Industry. Now This Means That We Are Treading In Difficult Water, Because It Really Means That We Are Saying That Something Is Wrong With Capitalism.

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.

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

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

Without Love, Benevolence Becomes Egotism.

All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity And Importance And Should Be Undertaken With Painstaking Excellence.

We All Too Often Have Socialism For The Rich And Rugged Free Market Capitalism For The Poor.

African American

This Is No Time To Engage In The Luxury Of Cooling Off Or To Take The Tranquilizing Drug Of Gradualism.

I Have A Dream Speech

To Be Negro In America Is To Hope Against Hope.

I Was In The Kitchen Drinking Coffee When I Heard Coretta Cry, "martin, Martin, Come Quickly!" I Put Down My Cup And Ran Toward The Living Room. As I Approached The Front Window Coretta Pointed Joyfully To A Slowly Moving Bus: "darling, It's Empty!

I Came To The Conclusion That There Is An Existential Moment In Your Life When You Must Decide To Speak For Yourself; Nobody Else Can Speak For You.

"i Criticize America Because I Love Her. I Want Her To Stand As A Moral Example To The World."

The Ability To Lead A Happy Life Is Made, Not Found

Mind Your Own Business

Most Of These People Will Never Make The Headlines And Their Names Will Not Appear In Who's Who. Yet When Years Have Rolled Past And When The Blazing Light Of Truth Is Focused On This Marvelous Age In Which We Live - Men And Women Will Know And Children Will Be Taught That We Have A Finer Land, A Better People, A More Noble Civilization - Because These Humble Children Of God Were Willing To Suffer For Righteousness' Sake.

We Cannot Walk Alone. And As We Walk, We Must Make The Pledge That We Shall Always March Ahead. We Cannot Turn Back.

I Have A Dream Speech

I Think The Inconveniences Of A Segregated Education Are Much Greater Than The Inconveniences Of Busing Students So That They Can Get An Integrated Quality Education.

To Sway An Audience, You Must Watch Them As You Speak.

Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word In Reality.

We Have No Alternative But To Protest. For Many Years We Have Shown An Amazing Patience... But We Come Here Tonight To Be Saved From That Patience That Makes Us Patient With Anything Less Than Freedom And Justice.

I Must Face The Fact, As All Others In Positions Of Leadership Must Do, That America Today Is An Extremely Sick Nation, And That Something Could Well Happen To Me At Any Time. I Feel, Though, That My Cause Is So Right, So Moral, That If I Should Lose My Life, In Some Way It Would Aid The Cause.

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.

The Potential Beauty Of Human Life Is Constantly Made Ugly By Man's Ever Recurring Song Of Retaliation. The Oceans Of History Are Made Turbulent By The Ever Rising Tides Of Revenge. Man Has Never Risen Above The Injunction Of The Lex Talionis: "life For Life, Eye For Eye, Tooth For Tooth, Hand For Hand, Foot For Foot." In Spite Of The Fact That The Law Of Revenge Solves No Social Problems, Men Continue To Follow Its Disastrous Leading. History Is Cluttered With The Wreckage Of Nations And Individuals That Pursued This Self-defeating Path.

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.

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.

Trending Author

Roger Nash Baldwin

John Shelton Reed

Georges Bernanos

Category