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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.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Cannot Make Myself

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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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.

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

It's Very Easy For One Talking About Violence And Hatred For The White Man To Appeal To [negro From Ghetto]. I Have Never Thought Of This, But I Think This Is Quite True, That If, Even If You Talk To Them About Nonviolence From A Tactical Point Of View, They Can't Quite See It Because They Don't Even Know They're Outnumbered.

Call It Democracy, Or Call It Democratic Socialism, But There Must Be A Better Distribution Of Wealth Within This Country For All God's Children.

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Three Simple Words Can Describe The Nature Of The Social Revolution That Is Talking Place And What Negroes Really Want. They Are The Words "all," "now," And "here."

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

To Ignore Evil Is To Become An Accomplice To It.

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

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

Darkness Is Only Driven Out With Light, Not More Darkness.

I Feel That The Time Is Always Right To Do What Is Right. Where Progress For The Negro In America Is Concerned, There Is A Tragic Misconception Of Time Among Whites. They Seem To Cherish A Strange, Irrational Notion That Something In The Very Flow Of Time Will Cure All Ills.

As Long As There Is Poverty In The World I Can Never Be Rich, Even If I Have A Billion Dollars. As Long As Diseases Are Rampant And Millions Of People In This World Cannot Expect To Live More Than Twenty-eight Or Thirty Years, I Can Never Be Totally Healthy Even If I Just Got A Good Checkup At Mayo Clinic. I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be. This Is The Way Our World Is Made. No Individual Or Nation Can Stand Out Boasting Of Being Independent. We Are Interdependent.

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.

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.

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You Can’t Reach Good Ends Through Evil Means, Because The Means Represent The Seed And The End Represents The Tree.

Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think

As Long As The Mind Is Enslaved, The Body Can Never Be Free.

In Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow The Radiant Stars Of Love And Brotherhood Will Shine Over Our Great Nation With All Their Scintillating Beauty.

We In The West Must Bear In Mind That The Poor Countries Are Poor Primarily Because We Have Exploited Them Through Political Or Economic Colonialism.

The Evils Of Capitalism Are As Real As The Evils Of Militarism And Evils Of Racism.

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We Must See That Peace Represents A Sweeter Music, A Cosmic Melody, That Is Far Superior To The Discords Of War.

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

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

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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.

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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

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

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Painful Experiences

He Who Is Greatest Among You Shall Be A Servant. That's The New Definition Of Greatness. ... By Giving That Definition Of Greatness, It Means That Everybody Can Be Great, Because Everybody Can Serve.

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

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Nothing To Lose

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Only In The Darkness Can You See The Stars.

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I Say To You Today, My Friends, So Even Though We Face The Difficulties Of Today And Tomorrow, I Still Have A Dream.

A Man Who Hasn't Found Anything He'd Die For Doesn't Deserve To Live.

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Now Is The Time To Make Justice A Reality For All Of God's Children.

Man Was Born Into Barbarism When Killing His Fellow Man Was A Normal Condition Of Existence. He Became Endowed With A Conscience. And He Has Now Reached The Day When Violence Toward Another Human Being Must Become As Abhorrent As Eating Another's Flesh.

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.

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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?

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.

Resistance And Nonviolence Are Not In Themselves Good. There Is Another Element That Must Be Present In Our Struggle That Then Makes Our Resistance And Nonviolence Truly Meaningful. That Element Is Reconciliation. Our Ultimate End Must Be The Creation Of The Beloved Community.

Beloved Community

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.

Don't Ever Let Anyone Pull You So Low As To Hate Them. We Must Use The Weapon Of Love. We Must Have The Compassion And Understanding For Those Who Hate Us. We Must Realize So Many People Are Taught To Hate Us That They Are Not Totally Responsible For Their Hate. But We Stand In Life At Midnight; We Are Always On The Threshold Of A New Dawn.

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.

I Think That We've Got To Come To See This. The Negro Is An American.

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

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

We Cannot Walk Alone.

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

It Is Obvious Today That America Has Defaulted On This Promissory Note Insofar As Her Citizens Of Color Are Concerned. Instead Of Honoring This Sacred Obligation, America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

... The Right To Defend One's Home And One's Person When Attacked Has Been Guaranteed Through The Ages By Common Law.

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.

Is Is Always Time To Do The Right Thing.

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

Temporary Setbacks

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.

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

All Men Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality.

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age...the Time Has Come For Us To Civilize Ourselves By The Total, Direct And Immediate Abolition Of Poverty.

Whatever Effects One Directly, Effects All Indirectly.

Let Us Rise Up Tonight With A Greater Readiness. Let Us Stand With A Greater Determination. And Let Us Move On In These Powerful Days, These Days Of Challenge To Make America What It Ought To Be. We Have An Opportunity To Make America A Better Nation.

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

This Will Be The Day When We Shall Bring Into Full Realization The Dream Of American Democracy - A Dream Yet Unfulfilled. A Dream Of Equality Of Opportunity, Of Privilege And Property Widely Distributed; A Dream Of A Land Where Men Will Not Take Necessities From The Many To Give Luxuries To The Few.

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.

One Of The Greatest Casualties Of The War In Vietnam Is The Great Society... Shot Down On The Battlefield Of Vietnam.

We Must Use Time Creatively.

O America, How You've Taken Necessities From The Masses To Give Luxuries To The Classes.

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.

Forgiveness Does Not Mean Ignoring What Has Been Done Or Putting A False Label On An Evil Act. It Means, Rather, That The Evil Act No Longer Remains As A Barrier To The Relationship. Forgiveness Is A Catalyst Creating The Atmosphere Necessary For A Fresh Start And A New Beginning.

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.

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

We Must Come To See With The Distinguished Jurist Of Yesterday That "justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied."

The Potential Beauty Of Human Life Is Constantly Made Ugly By Man's Ever-recurring Song Of Retaliation.

Love Is The Only Creative, Redemptive, Transforming Power, In The Universe.

Had It Not Been For The Ministry Of My Good Friend Dr. Billy Graham, My Work In The Civil Rights Movement Would Not Have Been As Successful As It Has Been.

Without Love, Benevolence Becomes Egotism.

Love Is Somehow The Key That Unlocks The Door Which Leads To Ultimate Reality.

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

Mind Your Own Business

Every Man Is Somebody Because He Is A Child Of God.

The Negro's Problem Will Not Be Solved By Running Away.

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

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

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

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

Let Us Be Those Creative Dissenters Who Will Call Our Beloved Nation To A Higher Destiny. To A New Plateau Of Compassion, To A More Noble Expression Of Humanness.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

Our Lives Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter.

[people] Don't See That There's A Great Deal Of A Difference Between Nonresistance To Evil And Nonviolent Resistance.

A Lie Cannot Live.

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

We Aren't Going To Let Any Mace Stop Us. We Are Masters In Our Nonviolent Movement In Disarming Police Forces; They Don't Know What To Do.

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

When You Are Right You Cannot Be Too Radical; When You Are Wrong, You Cannot Be Too Conservative.

Thought Provoking

Now Is The Time To Rise From The Dark And Desolate Valley Of Segregation To The Sunlit Path Of Racial Justice.

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

Whatever Affects One Directly, Affects All Indirectly. I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be. This Is The Interrelated Structure Of Reality.

Even If They Try To Kill You, You Develop The Inner Conviction That There Are Some Things So Precious, Some Things So Eternally True That They Are Worth Dying For. And If A Person Has Not Found Something To Die For, That Person Isn't Fit To Live!

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.

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.

If I Wish To Compose Or Write Or Pray Or Preach Well, I Must Be Angry. Then All The Blood In My Veins Is Stirred, And My Understanding Is Sharpened.

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.

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

Violence Is Anything That Denies Human Integrity, And Leads To Hopelessness And Helplessness.

If You Succumb To The Temptation Of Using Violence In The Struggle, Unborn Generations Will Be The Recipients Of A Long And Desolate Night Of Bitterness, And Your Chief Legacy To The Future Will Be An Endless Reign Of Meaningless Chaos.

Don't Let Anybody Take Your Manhood.

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.

And When You Discover What You Will Be In Your Life, Set Out To Do It As If God Almighty Called You At This Particular Moment In History To Do It. Don't Just Set Out To Do A Good Job.

The Marvelous New Militancy Which Has Engulfed The Negro Community Must Not Lead Us To A Distrust Of All White People, For Many Of Our White Brothers, As Evidenced By Their Presence Here Today, Have Come To Realize That Their Destiny Is Tied Up With Our Destiny And Their Freedom Is Inextricably Bound To Our Freedom.

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

There Are More Negroes In Jail With Me Than There Are On The Voting Rolls.

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

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

The Negro Cannot Win The Respect Of The White People Of The South Or The Peoples Of The World If He Is Willing To Sell The Future Of His Children For His Personal And Immediate Comfort And Safety.

Faith Is Taking The First Step Even When You Don't See The Whole Staircase.

Human Salvation Lies In The Hands Of The Creatively Maladjusted.

I Became Convinced That Noncooperation With Evil Is As Much A Moral Obligation As Is Cooperation With Good. No Other Person Has Been More Eloquent And Passionate In Getting This Idea Across Than Henry David Thoreau. As A Result Of His Writings And Personal Witness, We Are The Heirs Of A Legacy Of Creative Protest.

Good And Just Society Is Neither The Thesis Of Capitalism Nor The Antithesis Of Communism, But A Socially Conscious Democracy Which Reconciles The Truths Of Individualism And Collectivism.

Segregation...not Only Harms One Physically But Injures One Spiritually...it Scars The Soul...it Is A System Which Forever Stares The Segregated In The Face, Saying 'you Are Less Than...''you Are Not Equal To...'

If You Can't Fly Then Run, If You Can't Run Then Walk, If You Can't Walk Then Crawl, But Whatever You Do You Have To Keep Moving Forward.

The Church Must Be Reminded That It Is Not The Master, Or The Servant Of The State, But Rather The Conscience Of The State.

The Problem Of Racism, The Problem Of Economic Exploitation, And The Problem Of War Are All Tied Together. These Are The Triple Evils That Are Interrelated.

I Have A Dream That One Day Little Black Boys And Girls Will Be Holding Hands With Little White Boys And Girls.

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

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

In Our Glorious Fight For Civil Rights, We Must Guard Against Being Fooled By False Slogans, Such As 'right-to-work.' It Provides No 'rights' And No 'works.' Its Purpose Is To Destroy Labor Unions And The Freedom Of Collective Bargaining…. We Demand This Fraud Be Stopped.

Our Scientific Power Has Outrun Our Spiritual Power. We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men.

And I've Seen The Promised Land. I May Not Get There With You. But I Want You To Know Tonight, That We, As A People Will Get To The Promised Land

When We Allow Freedom Ring, When We Let It Ring From Every Village And Every Hamlet, From Every State And Every City...

I Have A Dream Speech

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.

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 Idea Of A Superior Or Inferior Race Is A Myth That Has Been Completely Refuted By Anthropological Evidence.

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

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

We Need Not Join The Mad Rush To Purchase An Earthly Fallout Shelter. God Is Our Eternal Fallout Shelter. From Strength To Love, 1963

Procrastinatio N Is Still The Thief Of Time.

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.

Our Children Need Our Presence, Not Our Presents.

Ten Cures For Depression Are To Go Out And Do Something For Someone Else And Repeat It Nine Times.

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

Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

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

I May Not Be The Man I Want To Be; I May Not Be The Man I Ought To Be; I May Not Be The Man I Could Be; I May Not Be The Man I Truly Can Be; But Praise God, I'm Not The Man I Once Was

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.

Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

Nothing In The World Is More Dangerous Than Sincere Ignorance And Conscientious Stupidity.

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

Power Properly Understood Is Nothing But The Ability To Achieve Purpose... One Of The Great Problems Of History Is That The Concepts Of Love And Power Have Usually Been Contrasted As Opposites --- Polar Opposites --- So That Love Is Identified With A Resignation Of Power, And Power With A Denial Of Love... What Is Needed Is A Realization That Power Without Love Is Reckless And Abusive, And Love Without Power Is Sentimental And Anemic. Power At Its Best Is Love Implementing The Demands Of Justice, And Justice At Its Best Is Power Correcting Everything That Stands Against Love.

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.

True Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of Tension: It Is The Presence Of Justice.

Everyone Has The Power For Greatness, Not For Fame But Greatness, Because Greatness Is Determined By Service.

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

I Would Rather Be A Man Of Conviction Than A Man Of Conformity

My Soul Is Too Glad And Too Great To Be At Heart The Enemy Of Any Man

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.

I Have A Dream! To Be Free At Last! Free At Last! Free At Last. And If A Man Has Nothing To Die For, Then His Life Is Worth Nothing.

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

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

You See, My Friends...you Begin To Ask The Questions, 'who Owns The Oil?' You Begin To Ask The Question, 'who Owns The Iron Ore?' You Begin To Ask The Question, 'why Is It That People Have To Pay Water Bills In A World That Is Two-thirds Water?'

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.

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

Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

The Darwinian Concept Of The Survival Of The Fittest Has Been Substituted By A Philosophy Of The Survival Of The Slickest.

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Mary Catherine Bateson

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