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I Am Indebted To My Wife Coretta, Without Whose Love, Sacrifices, And Loyalty Neither Life Nor Work Would Bring Fulfillment. She Has Given Me Words Of Consolation When I Needed Them And A Well-ordered Home Where #christian Love Is A Reality.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Am Indebted To

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Am Indebted To My Wife Coretta, Without Whose Love, Sacrifices, And Loyalty Neither Life Nor Work Would Bring Fulfillment. She Has Given Me Words Of Consolation When I Needed Them And A Well-ordered Home Where #christian Love Is A Reality.

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More From Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Darkness Of Racial Injustice Will Be Dispelled Only By The Light Of Forgiving Love. For More That Three Centuries American Negroes Have Been Frustrated By Day And Bewilderment By Night By Unbearable Injustice, And Burdened With The Ugly Weight Of Discrimination. Forced To Live With These Shameful Conditions, We Are Tempted To Become Bitter And Retaliate With A Corresponding Hate. But If This Happens, The New Order We Seek Will Be Little More Than A Duplicate Of The Old Order. We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

Love Even For Enemies Is The Key To The Solution Of The Problems Of Our World.

World Hinges On Moral Foundations. God Has Made It So! God Has Made The Universe To Be Based On A Moral Law. So Long As Man Disobeys It He Is Revolting Against God. That’s What We Need In The World Today - People Who Will Stand For Right And Goodness.

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 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.

Somewhere Somebody Must Have Some Sense. Men Must See That Force Begets Force, Hate Begets Hate, Toughness Begets Toughness. And It Is All A Descending Spiral, Ultimately Ending In Destruction For All And Everybody. Somebody Must Have Sense Enough And Morality Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate And The Chain Of Evil In The Universe. And You Do That By 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.

We Aren't Engaged In Any Negative Protest And In Any Negative Arguments With Anybody. We Are Saying That We Are Determined To Be Men. We Are Determined To Be People. We Are Saying That We Are God's Children. And That We Don't Have To Live Like We Are Forced To Live.

The Labor Movement Was The Principal Force That Transformed Misery And Despair Into Hope And Progress.

The Softminded Person Always Wants To Freeze The Moment And Hold Life In The Gripping Yoke Of Sameness.

At The Center Of Non-violence Stands The Principle Of Love.

Thought Provoking

But Life At Its Best Is A Creative Synthesis Of Opposites In Fruitful Harmony.

We Must Learn That Passively To Accept An Unjust System Is To Cooperate With That System, And Thereby To Become A Participant In Its Evil.

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

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

You Can Kill The Dreamer, But You Can't Kill The Dream.

Personalism's Insistence That Only Personality-finite And Infinite-is Ultimately Real Strengthened Me In Two Convictions: It Gave Me Metaphysical And Philosophical Grounding For The Idea Of A Personal God, And It Gave Me A Metaphysical Basis For The Dignity And Worth Of All Human Personality.

Quietly Endure, Silently Suffer And Patiently Wait.

To Be Negro In America Is To Hope Against Hope.

Normal Fear Protects Us; Abnormal Fear Paralyses Us. Normal Fear Motivates Us To Improve Our Individual And Collective Welfare; Abnormal Fear Constantly Poisons And Distorts Our Inner Lives. Our Problem Is Not To Be Rid Of Fear But, Rather To Harness And Master It.

A Third Reason Why We Should Love Our Enemies Is That Love Is The Only Force Capable Of Transforming An Enemy Into A Friend. We Never Get Rid Of An Enemy By Meeting Hate With Hate; We Get Rid Of An Enemy By Getting Rid Of Enmity. By Its Very Nature, Hate Destroys And Tears Down; By Its Very Nature, Love Creates And Builds Up. Love Transforms With Redemptive Power.

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?

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

Courage Is The Power Of The Mind To Overcome Fear.

Science Keeps Religion From Sinking Into The Valley Of Crippling Irrationalism And Paralyzing Obscurantism. Religion Prevents Science From Falling Into The Marsh Of Obsolete Materialism And Moral Nihilism.

Our Destiny Is Tied Up With The Destiny Of America.

The Beauty Of Genuine Brotherhood And Peace Is More Precious Than Diamonds Or Silver Or Gold.

There Are Two Types Of Laws: There Are Just Laws And There Are Unjust Laws... What Is The Difference Between The Two?...an Unjust Law Is A Man-made Code That Is Out Of Harmony With The Moral Law.

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.”

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

All Life Is Interrelated. The Agony Of The Poor Impoverishes The Rich; The Betterment Of The Poor Enriches The Rich. We Are Inevitably Our Brother's Keeper Because We Are Our Brother's Brother. Whatever Affects One Directly Affects All Indirectly.

The Poor Never Get The Job Done They Are Sleepy.

I Have A Dream That One Day This Nation Will Rise Up And Live Out The True Meaning Of Its Creed; We Hold These Truths To Be Self-evident: That All Men Are Created Equal

I Cannot Make Myself Believe That God Wanted Me To Hate. I'm Tired Of Violence, I've Seen Too Much Of It. I've Seen Such Hate On The Faces Of Too Many Sheriffs In The South. And I'm Not Going To Let My Oppressor Dictate To Me What Method I Must Use. Our Oppressors Have Used Violence. Our Oppressors Have Used Hatred. Our Oppressors Have Used Rifles And Guns. I'm Not Going To Stoop Down To Their Level. I Want To Rise To A Higher Level. We Have A Power That Can't Be Found In Molotov Cocktails.

Never Before Have I Written So Long A Letter. I'm Afraid It Is Much Too Long To Take Your Precious Time. I Can Assure You That It Would Have Been Much Shorter If I Had Been Writing From A Comfortable Desk, But What Else Can One Do When He Is Alone In A Narrow Jail Cell, Other Than Write Long Letters, Think Long Thoughts, And Pray Long Prayers?

Human Salvation Lies In The Hands Of The Creatively Maladjusted.

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

Civilization And Violence Are Antithetical Concepts.

The Universe Is Under The Control Of A Loving Purpose, And That In The Struggle For Righteousness Man Has Cosmic Companionship (angels). Behind The Harsh Appearance Of The World There Is A Benign Power.

We Must Pursue Peaceful End Through Peaceful Means.

Alienation Is A Form Of Living Death. It Is The Acid Of Despair That Dissolves Society.

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.

Religion Operates Not Only On The Vertical Plane But Also On The Horizontal. It Seeks Not Only To Integrate Men With God But To Integrate Men With Men And Each Man With Himself.

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

Be True To What You Said On Paper.

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.

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

The Strong Man Holds In A Living Blend Strongly Marked Opposites. The Idealists Are Not Usually Realistic, And The Realists Are Not Usually Idealistic. The Militant Are Not Generally Known To Be Passive, Nor The Passive To Be Militant. Seldom Are The Humble Self-assertive, Or The Self-assertive Humble. But Life At It's Best Is A Creative Synthesis Of Opposites In Fruitful Harmony.

It Is A Tragic Mix-up When The United States Spends 500,000 For Every Enemy Soldier Killed, And Only 53 Annually On The Victims Of Poverty.

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

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.

No Work Is Insignificant. All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity

Dignity Of Work

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 Sooner Our Society Admits That The Negro Revolution Is No Momentary Outburst Soon To Subside Into Placid Passivity, The Easier The Future Will Be For Us All.

We Must Concentrate Not Merely On The Negative Expulsion Of War But The Postive Affirmation Of Peace.

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

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.

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.

We've Been In The Mountain Of War. We've Been In The Mountain Of Violence. We've Been In The Mountain Of Hatred Long Enough. It Is Necessary To Move On Now, But Only By Moving Out Of This Mountain Can We Move To The Promised Land Of Justice And Brotherhood And The Kingdom Of God. It All Boils Down To The Fact That We Must Never Allow Ourselves To Become Satisfied With Unattained Goals. We Must Always Maintain A Kind Of Divine Discontent.

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

Those Of Us Who Love Peace Must Organize As Effectively As The War Hawks. As They Spread The Propaganda Of War, We Must Spread The Propaganda Of Peace.

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

Use Me, God. Show Me How To Take Who I Am, Who I Want To Be, And What I Can Do, And Use It For A Purpose Greater Than Myself.

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.

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.

If Your Opponent Has A Conscience, Then Follow Gandhi And Nonviolence. But If Your Enemy Has No Conscience Like Hitler, Then Follow Bonhoeffer.

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.

We Are Out To Defeat Injustice And Not White Persons Who May Be Unjust.

I Am Not Afraid Of The Word Tension.

Creative Tension

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.

But I Say To You, My Friends, There Are Certain Things In Our Nation And In The World Which I Am Proud To Be Maladjusted And Which I Hope All Men Of Good-will Will Be Maladjusted Until The Good Societies Realize.

I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

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

I Never Intend To Adjust Myself To The Madness Of Militarism.

When You Cut Facilities, Slash Jobs, Abuse Power, Discriminate, Drive People Into Deeper Poverty & Shoot People Dead Whilst Refusing To Provide Answers Or Justice, The People Will Rise Up & Express Their Anger & Frustration If You Refuse To Hear Their Cries. A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

Cowardice Is Submissive Surrender To Circumstances.

An Individual Who Breaks A Law That Conscience Tells Him Is Unjust, And Who Willingly Accepts The Penalty Of Imprisonment In Order To Arouse The Conscience Of The Community Over Its Injustice, Is In Reality Expressing The Highest Respect For The Law.

The More I Thought About Human Nature, The More I Saw How Our Tragic Inclination For Sin/mistakes Causes Us To Use Our Minds To Rationalize Our Action.

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

...we Must Realize That A Vast Majority Of Believers Are Still Searching And Will Continue To Search For The Being Who Is The "source Of Human Good." Those Who Seek With Clear Heads And Sincere Hearts Will In Some Measure Find. Of Course The True Seeker Will Realize That There Is No One Way To Find God. To Be Sure, There Are Many Possible Ways Of Finding God.

One Day We Will Learn That The Heart Can Never Be Totally Right If The Head Is Totally Wrong. Only Through The Bringing Together Of Head And Heart-intelligence And Goodness-shall Man Rise To A Fulfillment Of His True Nature.

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.

In The Final Analysis The Weakness Of Black Power Is Its Failure To See That The Black Man Needs The White Man And The White Man Needs The Black Man.

The Contemporary Church Is So Often A Weak, Ineffectual Voice With An Uncertain Sound. It Is So Often The Arch Supporter Of The Status Quo.

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

History Has Thrust Something Upon Me From Which I Cannot Turn Away.

Here Is The True Meaning And Value Of Compassion And Nonviolence, When It Helps Us To See The Enemy's Point Of View, To Hear His Questions, To Know His Assessment Of Ourselves. For From His View We May Indeed See The Basic Weaknesses Of Our Own Condition, And If We Are Mature, We May Learn And Grow And Profit From The Wisdom Of The Brothers Who Are Called The Opposition.

There's Something About Love That Builds Up And Is Creative. There Is Something About Hate That Tears Down And Is Destructive. So Love Your Enemies.

A Lie Cannot Live.

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.

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.

Freedom Only Comes Through Persistent Revolt, Through Persistent Agitation, Through Persistently Rising Up Against The System Of Evil.

Wherever Schools Can Be Integrated Through The Busing Method, And Where It Won't Be Just A, A Terrible Inconvenience, I Think It Ought To Be Done.

Power Properly Understood Is Nothing But The Ability To Achieve Purpose. It Is The Strength Required To Bring About Social, Political And Economic Change.

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.

There Is No Deficit In Human Resources; The Deficit Is In Human Will.

There Is Something In This Universe That Justifies The Biblical Writer In Saying, "you Shall Reap What You Sow." This Is A Law-abiding Universe. This Is A Moral Universe. It Hinges On Moral Foundations. If We Are To Make Of This A Better World, We've Got To Go Back And Rediscover That Precious Value That We've Left Behind.

Your Self-sacrificin G Devotion To Your Purpose In Life And Your Unwavering Faith Will Carry You Through Times Of Difficulty.

Unwavering Faith

I Would Be Misleading You If I Made You Feel That We Could Win A Violent Campaign. It's Impractical Even To Think About It. The Minute We Start, We Will End Up Getting Many More People Killed Unnecessarily. Now, I'm Ready To Die Myself. Many Other Committed People Are Ready To Die. If You Believe In Something Firmly, If You Believe In It Truly, If You Believe It In Your Heart, You Are Willing To Die For It, But I'm Not Going To Advocate A Method That Brings About Unnecessary Death.

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 Great Military Leaders Of The Past Have Gone, Their Empires Have Crumbled And Burned To Ashes. But The Empire Of Jesus, Built Solidly And Majestically On The Foundation Of Love, Is Still Growing.

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.

Courage Faces Fear And Thereby Masters It

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

The Poor In Our Countries Have Been Shut Out Of Our Minds And Driven From The Mainstream Of Our Societies, Because We Have Allowed Them To Become Invisible.

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

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. Far From Being The Pious Injunction Of A Utopian Dreamer, Love Is An Absolute Necessity For The Survival Of Our Civilization. To Return Hate For Hate Does Nothing But Intensify The Existence Of Evil In The Universe. Someone Must Have Sense Enough And Religion Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate And Evil, And This Can Only Be Done Through Love.

You Know, My Friends, There Comes A Time When People Get Tired Of Being Trampled Over By The Iron Feet Of Oppression.

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

Mind Your Own Business

No One Is Free Until We Are All Free.

Nonviolence Means Avoiding Not Only External Physical Violence But Also Internal Violence Of Spirit. You Not Only Refuse To Shoot A Man, But You Refuse To Hate Him.

We As Christians Have A Mandate To Be Nonconformists.

As The Weeks And Months Unfolded, We Realized That We Were The Victims Of A Broken Promise.

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!"

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.

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

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.

Whatever Affects One Directly Affects All Indirectly.

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.

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

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.

For Years, I Labored With The Idea Of Reforming The Existing Institutions In The South, A Little Change Here, A Little Change There. Now I Feel Quite Differently. I Think You've Got To Have A Reconstruction Of The Entire System, A Revolution Of Values.

Our Nettlesome Task Is To Discover How To Organize Our Strength Into Compelling Power.

Everyone Has An Opportunity To Be Great Because Everyone Has An Opportunity To Serve.

Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty We Are Free At Last.

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.

[nonviolence] Seeks To Secure Moral Ends Through Moral Means.

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

I Would Be The Last To Condemn The Thousands Of Sincere And Dedicated People Outside The Churches Who Have Labored Unselfishly Through Various Humanitarian Movements To Cure The World Of Social Evils, For I Would Rather A Man Be A Committed Humanist Than An Uncommitted Christian.

Without God, All Of Our Efforts Turn To Ashes And Our Sunrise Into The Darkest Of Nights.

Justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.

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

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.

Like Paul, I Must Constantly Respond To The Macedonian Call For Aid.

Being A Negro In America Means Trying To Smile When You Want To Cry. It Means Trying To Hold On To Physical Life Amid Psychological Death. It Means The Pain Of Watching Your Children Grow Up With Clouds Of Inferiority In Their Mental Skies. It Means Having Their Legs Off, And Then Being Condemned For Being A Cripple.

Every Man Must Decide Whether He Will Walk In The Light Of Creative Altruism Or In The Darkness Of Destructive Selfishness.

And So Even Though We Face The Difficulties Of Today And Tomorrow, I Still Have A Dream. It Is A Dream Deeply Rooted In The American Dream.

Are You Able To Accept Blows Without Retaliating?" And "are You Able To Endure The Ordeals Of Jail?"

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.

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.

Our Generation Will Not Have Regretted Both Perverse Crimes, And The Eerie Silence Of The Kind

The Modern Choice Is Between Non-violence Or Non-existence.

God Is Not Merely Interestd In The Freedom Of Brown Men, Yellow Men, Red Men And Black Men.he Is Interested In The Freedom Of The Whole Human Race.

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!

Hatred And Bitterness Can Never Cure The Disease Of Fear; Only Love Can Do That. Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Harmonies It. Hatred Darkens Life; Love Illuminates It.

It Is Love That Will Save Our World And Our Civilization.

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.

We Must Remember That Intelligence Is Not Enough. Intelligence Plus Character--that Is The Goal Of True Education. The Complete Education Gives One Not Only Power Of Concentration, But Worthy Objectives Upon Which To Concentrate. The Broad Education Will, Therefore, Transmit To One Not Only The Accumulated Knowledge Of The Race But Also The Accumulated Experience Of Social Living. If We Are Not Careful, Our Colleges Will Produce A Group Of Close-minded, Unscientific, Illogical Propagandists, Consumed With Immoral Acts. Be Careful, Brethren! Be Careful, Teachers!

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

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.

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.

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.

It Is Appalling That The Most Segregated Hour Of Christian America Is Eleven O'clock On Sunday Morning.

Difficult And Painful As It Is, We Must Walk On In The Days Ahead With An Audacious Faith In The Future.

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.

I've Decided To Stick With Love.

It All Boils Down To The Fact That We Must Never Allow Ourselves To Become Satisfied With Unattained Goals. We Must Always Maintain A Kind Of Divine Discontent.

We Have Also Come To This Hallowed Spot To Remind America Of The Fierce Urgency Of Now. This Is No Time To Engage In The Luxury Of Cooling Off Or To Take The Tranquilizing Drug Of Gradualism. Now Is The Time To Make Real The Promises Of Democracy

[i]t Must Be Emphasized That Nonviolent Resistance Is Not A Method For Cowards; It Does Resist. If One Uses This Method Because He Is Afraid Or Merely Because He Lacks The Instruments Of Violence, He Is Not Truly Nonviolent. This Is Why Gandhi Often Said That If Cowardice Is The Only Alternative To Violence, It Is Better To Fight.

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

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

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

I Agree With Dante, That The Hottest Places In Hell Are Reserved For Those Who In A Period Of Moral Crisis Maintain Their Neutrality. There Comes A Time When Silence Becomes Betrayal.

Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere.

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.

I Never Cease To Wonder At The Amazing Presumption Of Much Of White Society, Assuming That They Have The Right To Bargain With The Negro For His Freedom.

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

The Greatest Pain Is The Pain Of A New Idea.

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.

It Is Always The Right Time To Do The Right Thing.

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

Today, Is A Great Day To Make A Difference For Someone. 'i Have A Dream'.

Our Only Hope Today Lies In Our Ability To Recapture The Revolutionary Spirit And Go Out Into A Sometimes Hostile World Declaring Eternal Hostility To Poverty, Racism, And Militarism... We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now.

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

Mankind's Survival Is Dependent On Man's Ability To Solve The Problems Of Racial Injustice, Poverty, And War; The Solution Of These Problems Is In Turn Dependent Upon Man's Squaring His Moral Progress With His Scientific Progress, And Learning The Practical Art Of Living In Harmony.

In His Essay 'self-reliance' Emerson Wrote, 'whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.' The Apostle Paul Reminds Us That Whoso Would Be A Christian Must Also Be A A Nonconformist. Any Christian Who Blindly Accepts The Opinions Of The Majority And In Fear And Timidity Follows A Path Of Expediency And Social Approval Is A Mental And Spiritual Slave.

It's Not Burn Baby Burn, But Learn, Baby, Learn, So That You Can Earn, Baby, Earn.

Segregation Is The Adultery Of An Illicit Intercourse Between Injustice And Immorality.

Find A Voice In A Whisper.

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

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.

It Is Our Experience That The Nation Doesn't Move Around Questions Of Genuine Equality For The Poor And For Black People Until It Is Confronted Massively, Dramatically In Terms Of Direct Action.

There Is Something In The Soul That Cries Out For Freedom.

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

The Road To Freedom Is A Difficult, Hard Road. It Always Makes For Temporary Setbacks.

Temporary Setbacks

If You Want To Be Important-wonderful. If You Want To Be Recognized-wonderful. If You Want To Be Great-wonderful. But Recognize That He Who Is Greatest Among You Shall Be Your Servant. That's A New Definition Of Greatness.

Have We Not Come To Such An Impasse In The Modern World That We Must Love Our Enemies - Or Else? The Chain Reaction Of Evil - Hate Begetting Hate, Wars Producing More Wars - Must Be Broken, Or Else We Shall Be Plunged Into The Dark Abyss Of Annihilation.

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.

The Truth May Hurt, But Love Helps Ease The Pain.

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.

I Refuse To Accept The View That Mankind Is So Tragically Bound To The Starless Midnight Of Racism And War That The Bright Daybreak Of Peace And Brotherhood Can Never Become A Reality... I Believe That Unarmed Truth And Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word.

Violence Is Immoral Because It Thrives On Hatred Rather Than Love. It Destroys Community And Makes Brotherhood Impossible. It Leaves Society In Monologue Rather Than Dialogue. Violence Ends By Defeating Itself. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers.

One Who Breaks An Unjust Law Must Do So Openly, Lovingly, And With A Willingness To Accept The Penalty.

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.

I May Be Crucified For My Beliefs And, If I Am, You Can Say, "he Died To Make Men Free.

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

The Function Of Education Is To Teach One To Think Intensively And To Think Critically. Intelligence Plus Character - That Is The Goal Of True Education.

Freedom Is Never Voluntarily Given By The Oppressor; It Must Be Demanded By The Oppressed.

The Question Is No Longer Between Violence And Non-violence It Is Between Non-violence And Non-existence.

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

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