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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.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Could Never Adjust

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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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.

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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.

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

Love Your Enemies

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?

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 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.

We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

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

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

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.

And Violence Is Impractical, Because The Old Eye For An Eye Philosophy Ends Up Leaving Everybody Blind .. It Is Immoral Because It Is A Descending Spiral Ending In Destruction For Everybody. Means And Ends Are Inseparable. The Means Represent The Ideal In The Making; In The Long Run Of History Destructive Means Cannot Bring About Constructive Ends.

Power Is The Ability To Achieve Purpose.

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

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.

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.

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.

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate.

Loving Your Enemies

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

Hate Destroys The Hater.

Whatever Effects One Directly, Effects All Indirectly.

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.

One Day The Absurdity Of The Almost Universal Human Belief In The Slavery Of Other Animals Will Be Palpable. We Shall Then Have Discovered Our Souls And Become Worthier Of Sharing This Planet With Them.

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age. It Is Socially As Cruel And Blind As The Practice Of Cannibalism At The Dawn Of Civilization, When Men Ate Each Other Because They Had Not Yet Learned To Take Food From The Soil Or To Consume The Abundant Animal Life Around Them. The Time Has Come For Us To Civilize Ourselves By The Total, Direct And Immediate Abolition Of Poverty.

It Is Not Possible To Be In Favor Of Justice For Some People And Not Be In Favor Of Justice For All People.

Justice For All

If I Lived In A Communist Country Today Where Certain Principles Dear To The Christian Faith Are Suppressed, I Believe I Would Openly Advocate Disobeying These Anti-religious Laws.

Curtailment Of Free Speech Is Rationalized On Grounds That A More Compelling American Tradition Forbids Criticism Of The Government When The Nation Is At War... Nothing Can Be More Destructive Of Our Fundamental Democratic Traditions Than The Vicious Effort To Silence Dissenters.

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

I Decide On The Basis Of Conscience. A Genuine Leader Doesn't Reflect Consensus, He Molds Consensus.

Hatred Darkens Life; Love Illumines It.

I Have Almost Reached The Regrettable Conclusion That The Negro's Great Stumbling Block In The Stride Toward Freedom Is Not The White Citizens Councilor Or The Ku Klux Klanner But The White Moderate Who Is More Devoted To Order Than To Justice; Who Prefers A Negative Peace Which Is The Absence Of Tension To A Positive Peace Which Is The Presence Of Justice.

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.

There Is Nothing New About Poverty. What Is New, However, Is That We Have The Resources To Get Rid Of It.

Riots Are The Voices Of The Unheard.

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

My Friends, All I'm Trying To Say Is That If We Are To Go Forward Today, We've Got To Go Back And Rediscover Some Mighty Precious Values That We've Left Behind. That's The Only Way That We Would Be Able To Make Of Our World A Better World, And To Make Of This World What God Wants It To Be And The Real Purpose And Meaning Of It.

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

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

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.

I Think That We Must Face The Fact That In Reality, You Cannot Have Economic And Political Equality Without Having Some Form Of Social Equality. I Think This Is Inevitable.

Let No Man Pull You So Low As To Hate Him.

This Is The Unusual Thing About Nonviolence -- Nobody Is Defeated, Everybody Shares In The Victory.

The Belief That God Will Do Everything For Man Is As Untenable As The Belief That Man Can Do Everything For Himself. It, Too, Is Based On A Lack Of Faith. We Must Learn That To Expect God To Do Everything While We Do Nothing Is Not Faith But Superstition.

With All Of Its False Assumptions And Evil Methods, Communism Grew As A Protest Against The Hardships Of The Underprivileged. Communism In Theory Emphasized A Classless Society, And A Concern For Social Justice, Though The World Knows From Sad Experience That In Practice It Created New Classes And A New Lexicon Of Injustice.

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

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

If Our Economic System Is To Survive, There Has To Be A Better Distribution Of Wealth ... We Can't Have A System Where Some People Live In Superfluous, Inordinate Wealth, While Others Live In Abject Deadening Poverty.

Distribution Of Wealth

Babies, We Are Told, Are The Latest News From Heaven.

Cowardice Is Submissive Surrender To Circumstances.

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

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

Every Nation Must Now Develop An Overriding Loyalty To Mankind As A Whole In Order To Preserve The Best In Their Individual Societies.

Never Forget That Everything Hitler Did In Germany Was Legal.

Libertarian Party

Thought Provoking

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.

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

I Am Convinced That If We Are To Get On The Right Side Of The World Revolution, We As A Nation Must Undergo A Radical Revolution Of Values. We Must Rapidly Begin The Shift From A "thing-oriented" Society To A "person-oriented" Society.

Breaking Silence

If You Can't Be A Sun, Be A Star. For It Isn't By Size That You Win Or Fail. Be The Best Of Whatever You Are.

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

Procrastinatio N Is Still The Thief Of Time.

We Must Speak With All The Humility That Is Appropriate To Our Limited Vision, But We Must Speak.

Breaking Silence

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

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.

Justice Denied Anywhere Diminishes Justice Everywhere.

The Spirit Of Lincoln Still Lives; That Spirit Born Of The Teachings Of The Nazarene, Who Promised Mercy To The Merciful, Who Lifted The Lowly, Strengthened The Weak, Ate With Publicans, And Made The Captives Free. In The Light Of This Divine Example, The Doctrines Of Demagogues Shiver In Their Chaff.

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

The Quality, Not The Longevity, Of One's Life Is What Is Important.

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

We Must Substitute Courage For Caution.

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

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 Justice, There Can Be No Peace.

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

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

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?

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.

I Have A Dream That One Day Even The State Of Mississippi, A Desert State, Sweltering With The Heat Of Injustice And Oppression, Will Be Transformed Into An Oasis Of Freedom And Justice.

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

A Genuine Leader Is Not A Searcher For Consensus But A Molder Of Consensus.

And So We Shall Have To Do More Than Register And More Than Vote; We Shall Have To Create Leaders Who Embody Virtues We Can Respect, Who Have Moral And Ethical Principles We Can Applaud With Enthusiasm.

Ethical Principles

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

That Old Law About 'an Eye For An Eye' Leaves Everybody Blind. The Time Is Always Right To Do The Right Thing.

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

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

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.

A Final Victory Is An Accumulation Of Many Short-term Encounters. To Lightly Dismiss A Success Because It Does Not Usher In A Complete Order Of Justice Is To Fail To Comprehend The Process Of Achieving Full Victory.

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

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

All Progress Is Precarious, And The Solution Of One Problem Brings Us Face To Face With Another Problem.

Whenever Men And Women Straighten Their Backs Up, They Are Going Somewhere, Because A Man Can't Ride Your Back Unless It Is Bent

The Majority Of The Negroes Who Took Part In The Year-long Boycott Of Montgomery's Buses Were Poor And Untutored; But They Understood The Essence Of The Montgomery Movement; One Elderly Woman Summed It Up For The Rest. When Asked After Several Weeks Of Walking Whether She Was Tired, She Answered: "my Feet Is Tired, But My Soul Is At Rest.

If You Haven't Found Something Worth Dying For, You're Not Fit To Live.

Somebody Told A Lie One Day. They Couched It In Language. They Made Everything Black Ugly And Evil. Look In Your Dictionaries And See The Synonyms Of The Word Black. It's Always Something Degrading And Low And Sinister. Look At The Word White, It's Always Something Pure, High And Clean.

Three Hundred Years Of Humiliation, Abuse And Deprivation Cannot Be Expected To Find Voice In A Whisper.

The Unemployed, Poverty-stricken White Man Must Be Made To Realize That He Is In The Very Same Boat With The Negro. Together, They Could Exert Massive Pressure On The Government To Get Jobs For All. Together, They Could Form A Grand Alliance. Together, They Could Merge All People For The Good Of All.

Never, Never Be Afraid To Do What's Right, Especially If The Well-being Of A Person Or Animal Is At Stake. Society's Punishments Are Small Compared To The Wounds We Inflict On Our Soul When We Look The Other Way.

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

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

Within The Best Of Us, There Is Some Evil, And Within The Worst Of Us, There Is Some Good. When We Come To See This, We Take A Different Attitude Toward Individuals.

It’s Wrong To Hate. It Always Has Been Wrong And It Always Will Be Wrong! It’s Wrong In America, It’s Wrong In Germany, It’s Wrong In Russia, It’s Wrong In China! It Was Wrong In Two Thousand B.c., And It’s Wrong In Nineteen Fifty-four A.d.! It Always Has Been Wrong, And It Always Will Be Wrong!

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

Music Is The Best Consolation For A Despaired Man

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

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

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

I Am Thankful, However, That Some Of Our White Brothers Have Grasped The Meaning Of This Social Revolution And Committed Themselves To It. They Are Still All Too Small In Quantity, But They Are Big In Quality.

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

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.

I Think There Can Be A Collective Leadership. Maybe Some Symbolize The Struggle [for Human's Rights] A Little More Than Others, But I Think It's Absolutely Necessary For The Leadership To Be United In Order To Make The Revolution Effective.

I Am Not Interested In Power For Power's Sake, But I'm Interested In Power That Is Moral, That Is Right And That Is Good.

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

Negro Leaders Sought To Negotiate With The City Fathers. But The Political Leaders Consistently Refused To Engage In Good-faith Negotiation.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

For More Than Two Centuries Our Foreparents Labored Here Without Wages; They Made Cotton King; And They Built The Homes Of Their Masters In The Midst Of Brutal Injustice And Shameful Humiliation - And Yet Out Of A Bottomless Vitality Our People Continue To Thrive And Develop.

A Second Basic Fact That Characterizes Nonviolence Is That It Does Not Seek To Defeat Or Humiliate The Opponent, But To Win His Friendship And Understanding.

Beloved Community

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.

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 Said To My Children, 'i'm Going To Work And Do Everything That I Can Do To See That You Get A Good Education. I Don't Ever Want You To Forget That There Are Millions Of God's Children Who Will Not And Cannot Get A Good Education, And I Don't Want You Feeling That You Are Better Than They Are. For You Will Never Be What You Ought To Be Until They Are What They Ought To Be.

I Just Want To Do God's Will. And He's Allowed Me To Go To The Mountain. And I've Looked Over, 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.

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

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.

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!

Of All The Forms Of Inequality, Injustice In Health Care Is The Most Shocking And Inhumane.

Man Is Not Made For The State; The State Is Made For Man. To Deprive Man Of Freedom Is To Relegate Him To The Status Of A Thing, Rather Than Elevate Him To The Status Of A Person. Man Must Never Be Treated As A Means To The End Of The State, But Always As An End Within Himself.

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

We Should Never Forget That Everything Adolf Hitler Did In Germany Was “legal” And Everything The Hungarian Freedom Fighters Did In Hungary Was “illegal.” It Was “illegal” To Aid And Comfort A Jew In Hitler’s Germany. Even So, I Am Sure That, Had I Lived In Germany At The Time, I Would Have Aided And Comforted My Jewish Brothers. If Todayi Lived In A Communist Country Where Certain Principles Dear To The Christian Faith Are Suppressed, I Would Openly Advocate Disobeying That Country's Antireligious Laws.

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.

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

My Uncertainty Disappeared. Segregation Is Evil, And I Cannot, As A Minister, Condone Evil.

We May Win A Battle, But If In Doing So We Have Planted Thousands Of Seeds Of Hatred And Fear..the War Is Not Over- Only The Present Conflict Has Ceased. There Will Be No Peace As Long As We React To Violence With Violence.

Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

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

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's Not How Long A Man Lives, But How Well He Uses The Time Allotted Him.

Time Has Been Used Destructively By People Of Ill Will Much More Than It Has Been Used Constructively By Those Of Good Will.

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.

Let Us Develop A Kind Of Dangerous Unselfishness.

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

Israel... Is One Of The Great Outpost Of Democracy In The World

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

I Have A Dream Speech

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.

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.

There Is Little Hope For Us Until We Become Tough-minded Enough To Break Loose From The Shackles Of Prejudice, Half-truths, And Down-right Ignorance.

People Are Often Led To Causes And Often Become Committed To Great Ideas Through Persons Who Personify Those Ideas. They Have To Find The Embodiment Of The Idea In Flesh And Blood In Order To Commit Themselves To It.

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.

Philanthropy Is Commendable, But It Must Not Cause The Philanthropist To Overlook The Circumstances Of Economic Injustice Which Make Philanthropy Necessary.

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

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.

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

We All Have The Drum Major Instinct. We All Want To Be Important, To Surpass Others, To Achieve Distinction, To Lead The Parade.

By...our Readiness To Allow Arms To Be Purchased At Will And Fired At Whim; By Allowing Our Movie And Television Screens To Teach Our Children That The Hero Is One Who Masters The Art Of Shooting And The Technique Of Killing...we Have Created An Atmosphere In Which Violence And Hatred Have Become Popular Pastimes.

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

Now Let Us Begin. Now Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To The Long And Bitter - But Beautiful - Struggle For A New World.

I Refuse To Accept The Idea That The “isness” Of Man's Present Nature Makes Him Morally Incapable Of Reaching Up For The Eternal “oughtness” That Forever Confronts Him.

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

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

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.

Too Often An Institution Serves To Bless The Majority Opinion. Today When Too Many Move To The Rhythmic Beat Of The Status Quo, Whoever Would Be A Christian Must Be A Nonconformist.

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

In A World Facing The Revolt Of Ragged And Hungry Masses Of God's Children; In A World Torn Between The Tensions Of East And West, White And Colored, Individuals And Collectivists; In A World Whose Cultural And Spiritual Power Lags So Far Behind Her Technological Capabilities That We Live Each Day On The Verge Of Nuclear Co-annihilation; In This World, Nonviolence Is No Longer An Option For Intellectual Analysis, It Is An Imperative For Action

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age.

Wars Are Poor Chisels For Carving Out Peaceful Tomorrows.

Education Must Enable A Man To Become More Efficient, To Achieve With Increasing Facility The Legitimate Goals Of His Life.

The Real Problem Is That Through Our Scientific Genius We’ve Made Of The World A Neighborhood, But Through Our Moral And Spiritual Genius We’ve Failed To Make Of It A Brotherhood.

What I'm Saying To You This Morning Is That Communism Forgets That Life Is Individual. Capitalism Forgets That Life Is Social, And The Kingdom Of Brotherhood Is Found Neither In The Thesis Of Communism Nor The Antithesis Of Capitalism But In A Higher Synthesis.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

Again And Again We Must Rise To The Majestic Heights Of Meeting Physical Force With Soul Force.

March On Washington

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.

Jesus Reminds Us That The Good Life Combines The Toughness Of The Serpent And The Tenderness Of The Dove. To Have Serpent-like Qualities Devoid Of Dovelike Qualities Is To Be Passionless, Mean, And Selfish. To Have Dovelike Without Serpent-like Qualities Is To Be Sentimental, Anemic And Aimless. We Must Combine Strongly Marked Antitheses.

We Must Rapidly Begin The Shift From A "thing-oriented" Society To A "person-oriented" Society.

Breaking Silence

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. The Negro All Over The South Must Come To The Point That He Can Say To His White Brother: "we Will Match Your Capacity To Inflict Suffering With Our Capacity To Endure Suffering. We Will Meet Your Physical Force With Soul Force. We Will Not Hate You, But We Will Not Obey Your Evil Laws. We Will Soon Wear You Down By Pure Capacity To Suffer".

Now Is The Time To Make Real The Promises Of Democracy. Now Is The Time To Rise From The Dark And Desolate Valley Of Segregation To The Sunlit Path Of Racial Justice. Now Is The Time To Lift Our Nation From The Quicksands Of Racial Injustice To The Solid Rock Of Brotherhood. Now Is The Time To Make Justice A Reality For All Of God’s Children.

Communism Forgets That Life Is Individual. Capitalism Forgets That Life Is Social, And The Kingdom Of Brotherhood Is Found Neither In The Thesis Of Communism Nor The Antithesis Of Capitalism But In A Higher Synthesis. It Is Found In A Higher Synthesis That Combines The Truths Of Both.

There Are Often Multiple Sources For Some Famous Statements By King; As A Professional Speaker And Minister He Used Some Significant Phrases With Only Slight Variation Many Times In His Essays, Books, And His Speeches To Different Audiences.

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.

Some Things Are Right, Whether Nobody Sees You Doing Them Or Not.

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

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

Mother Dear, One Day I'm Going To Turn This World Upside Down." --from My Brother Martin, By Christine King Farris

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

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

Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think

The Negro Who Experiences Bitter And Agonizing Circumstances As A Result Of Some Ungodly White Person Is Tempted To Look Upon All White Persons As Evil, If He Fails To Look Beyond His Circumstances. But The Minute He Looks Beyond His Circumstances And Sees The Whole Of The Situation, He Discovers That Some Of The Most Implacable And Vehement Advocates Of Racial Equality Are Consecrated White Persons.

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

We Must Forever Conduct Our Struggle On The High Plane Of Dignity And Discipline. We Must Not Allow Our Creative Protest To Degenerate Into Physical Violence.

Police Violence

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

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

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.

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

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