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

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I'm Thinking Of Love

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

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

It Seems To Me That Education Has A Two-fold Function To Perform In The Life Of Man And In Society: The One Is Utility And The Other Is Culture. Education Must Enable A Man To Become More Efficient, To Achieve With Increasing Facility The Ligitimate Goals Of His Life.

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

Nonviolence Is A Powerful As Well As A Just Weapon. If You Confront A Man Who Has Long Been Cruelly Misusing You, And Say, "punish Me, If You Will; I Do Not Deserve It, But I Will Accept It, So That The World Will Know I Am Right And You Are Wrong," Then You Wield A Powerful And A Just Weapon. This Man, Your Oppressor, Is Automatically Morally Defeated, And If He Has Any Conscience, He Is Ashamed.

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.

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

Thought Provoking

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

We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

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

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

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

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.

Nonviolent Resistance Makes It Possible For The Negro To Remain In The South And Struggle For His Rights. The Negro's Problem Will Not Be Solved By Running Away.

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

[nonviolence] Is Directed Against Forces Of Evil Rather Than Against Persons Who Happen To Be Doing The Evil. It Is Evil That The Nonviolent Resister Seeks To Defeat, Not The Persons Victimized By Evil.

We Will Not Build A Peaceful World By Following A Negative Path. It Is Not Enough To Say We Will Not Wage War. It Is Necessary To Love Peace And Sacrifice For It. We Must Concentrate Not Merely On The Negative Expulsion Of War, But On The Positive Affirmation Of Peace

Voting Is The Foundation Stone For Political Action.

A Man Who Won't Die For Something Is Not Fit To Live.

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World.

A Man Who Has Nothing He Is Willing To Die For Has Nothing Worth Living For

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

It Is Not Enough For Me To Stand Before You Tonight And Condemn Riots. It Would Be Morally Irresponsible For Me To Do That Without, At The Same Time, Condemning The Contingent, Intolerable Conditions That Exist In Our Society. These Conditions Are The Things That Cause Individuals To Feel That They Have No Other Alternative Than To Engage In Violent Rebellions To Get Attention. And I Must Say Tonight That A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

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

Right Defeated Is Stronger Than Evil Triumphant.

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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.

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.

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

If You Lose Hope, Somehow You Lose The Vitality That Keeps Moving, You Lose That Courage To Be, That Quality That Helps You Go On In Spite Of It All. And So Today I Still Have A Dream.

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

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

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Political Extremism

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.

There Is No Truth To The Myth That Negroes Depreciate Property. The Fact Is That Most Negroes Are Kept Out Of Residential Neighborhoods So Long That When One Of Us Is Finally Sold A Home, It's Already Depreciated.

On Some Positions, Cowardice Asks The Question, Is It Expedient? And Then Expedience Comes Along And Asks The Question, Is It Politic? Vanity Asks The Question, Is It Popular? Conscience Asks The Question, Is It Right? There Comes A Time When One Must Take The Position That Is Neither Safe Nor Politic Nor Popular, But He Must Do It Because Conscience Tells Him It Is Right.

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

African American

In Every Age And Every Generation, Men Have Envisioned A Promised Land. Some May Have Envisioned It With The Wrong Ideology, With The Wrong Philosophical Presupposition. But Men In Every Generation Thought In Terms Of Some Promised Land.

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.

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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.

The Group Consisting Of Mother, Father And Child Is The Main Educational Agency Of Mankind.

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No Man (sic) Has Learned To Live Until He Can Rise Above The Narrow Confines Of His Individualistic Concerns To The Broader Concerns Of All Humanity. Length Without Breadth Is Like A Self-contained Tributary Having No Outward Flow To The Ocean. Stagnant, Still And Stale, It Lacks Both Life And Freshness. In Order To Live Creatively And Meaningfully, Our Self-concern Must Be Wedded To Other Concerns.

To Be Negro In America Is To Hope Against Hope.

Let Us Say Boldly, That If The Total Slum Violations Of Law By The White Man Over The Years Were Calculated And Compared With The Lawbreaking Of A Few Days Of Riots, The Hardened Criminal Would Be The White Man.

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.

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

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.

I Have A Dream That One Day On The Red Hills Of Georgia, The Sons Of Former Slaves And The Sons Of Former Slave Owners Will Be Able To Sit Together At The Table Of Brotherhood.

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The Reason I Can't Follow The Old Eye-for-an-eye Philosophy Is That It Ends Up Leaving Everyone Blind.

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

Even When The Polls Are Open To All, Negroes Have Shown Themselves Too Slow To Exercise Their Voting Privileges. There Must Be A Concerted Effort On The Part Of Negro Leaders To Arouse Their People From Their Apathetic Indifference.... In The Past, Apathy Was A Moral Failure. Today, It Is A Form Of Moral And Political Suicide.

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

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Forgiveness Is Not An Occasional Act. It Is A Permanent Attitude. That Which I Was Not But Could Have Been. That Which I Would Have Done But Did Not Do. Can I Find The Fortitude To Remember In Truth,to Understand, To Submit, To Forgive And To Be Free To Move On In Time?

The Law Of "an Eye For An Eye" Will Eventually Leave Everyone Blind.

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

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.

And One Day We Must Ask The Question, "why Are There Forty Million Poor People In America?" And When You Begin To Ask That Question, You Are Raising Questions About The Economic System, About A Broader Distribution Of Wealth. When You Ask That Question, You Begin To Question The Capitalistic Economy.

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

Lukewarm Acceptance Is More Bewildering Than Outright Rejection.

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

Loving Your Enemies... Far From Being The Pious Injunction Of A Utopian Dreamer, This Demand Is An Absolute Necessity For The Survival Of Our Civilization. Yes It Is Love That Will Save Our World And Civilization; Love Even For Our Enemies.

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.

Through Nonviolent Resistance The Negro Will Be Able To Rise To The Noble Height Of Opposing The Unjust System While Loving The Perpetrators Of The System.

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.

When I Took Up The Cross I Recognized It's Meaning. The Cross Is Something That You Bear, And Ultimately, That You Die On.

Somehow We Must Transform The Dynamics Of The World Power Struggle From The Negative Nuclear Arms Race Which No One Can Win To A Positive Contest To Harness Man's Creative Genius For The Purpose Of Making Peace And Prosperity A Reality For All Of The Nations Of The World.

The Ultimate Measure Of A Man Is Not Where He Stands In Moments Of Comfort And Convenience, But Where He Stands At Times Of Challenge And Controversy.

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

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

We 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 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.

Courage Is An Inner Resolution To Go Forward Despite Obstacles; Cowardice Is Submissive Surrender To Circumstances.

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

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.

Just As Socrates Felt That It Was Necessary To Create A Tension In The Mind So That Individuals Could Rise From The Bondage Of Myths And Half-truths To The Unfettered Realm Of Creative Analysis And Objective Appraisal, So Must We See The Need For Nonviolent Gadflies To Create The Kind Of Tension In Society That Will Help Men Rise From The Dark Depths Of Prejudice And Racism To Majestic Heights Of Understanding And Brotherhood.

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.

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

Beloved Community

As My Sufferings Mounted I Soon Realized That There Were Two Ways In Which I Could Respond To My Situation -- Either To React With Bitterness Or Seek To Transform The Suffering Into A Creative Force. I Decided To Follow The Latter Course.

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.

The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World : My Own Government, I Can Not Be Silent.

The Self Cannot Be Self Without Other Selves.

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

Inhumanity To Man

One Has Not Only A Legal But A Moral Responsibility To Obey Just Laws. Conversely, One Has A Moral Responsibility To Disobey Unjust Laws. I Would Agree With St. Augustine That ' An Unjust Law Is No Law At All.

In Any Civilized Society, It Is Every Citizen's Responsibility To Obey Just Laws. But At The Same Time, It Is Every Citizen's Responsibility To Disobey Unjust Laws.

Education Without Social Action Is A One-sided Value Because It Has No True Power Potential.

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

We Can Never Travel Beyond The Arms Of The Divine.

A Lie Cannot Live.

The Major Problem Of Life Is Learning How To Handle The Costly Interruptions.

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

The Poor Never Get The Job Done They Are Sleepy.

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

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

Intelligence Plus Character-that Is The Goal Of True Education.

The Intellectual And Moral Satisfaction That I Failed To Gain From The Utilitarianism Of Bentham And Mill, The Revolutionary Methods Of Marx And Lenin, The Social Contract Theory Of Hobbes, The "back To Nature" Optimism Of Rousseau, And The Superman Philosophy Of Nietzsche, I Found In The Nonviolent Resistance Philosophy Of Gandhi. I Came To Feel That This Was The Only Morally And Practically Sound Method Open To Oppressed People In Their Struggle For Freedom.

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.

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

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.

War Is A Poor Chisel To Carve Out Tomorrow.

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.

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

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

Why Is The Church Always A Taillight Rather Than A Headlight?

Every Now And Then I Think About My Own Death, And I Think About My Own Funeral. [...] Every Now And Then I Ask Myself, 'what Is It That I Would Want Said?' I'd Like Somebody To Mention That Day, That Martin Luther King, Jr., Tried To Give His Life Serving Others. I'd Like For Somebody To Say That Day, That Martin Luther King, Jr., Tried To Love Somebody.

Now Let Me Say That The Next Thing We Must Be Concerned About If We Are To Have Peace On Earth And Good Will Toward Men Is The Nonviolent Affirmation Of The Sacredness Of All Human Life. Every Man Is Somebody Because He Is A Child Of God.

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

Agape Is Something Of The Understanding, Creative, Redemptive Goodwill For All Men. It Is A Love That Seeks Nothing In Return. It Is An Overflowing Love; It's What Theologians Would Call The Love Of God Working In The Lives Of Men. And When You Rise To Love On This Level, You Begin To Love Men, Not Because They Are Likeable, But Because God Loves Them.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Temporary Setbacks

It Is A Sad Fact That Because Of Comfort, Complacency, A Morbid Fear Of Communism, And Our Proneness To Adjust To Injustice, The Western Nations That Initiated So Much Of The Revolutionary Spirit Of The Modern World Have Now Become The Arch-antirevolutionaries.

Breaking Silence

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

If I Knew That The World Ends Tomorrow, I, Even Today, Plant A Tree

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.

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

A Right Delayed Is A Right Denied.

A Good Many Observers Have Remarked That If Equality Could Come At Once, The Negro Would Not Be Ready For It. I Submit That The White American Is Even More Unprepared.

One Day We Shall Win Freedom, But Not Only For Ourselves. We Shall So Appeal To Your Heart And Conscience That We Shall Win You In The Process, And Our Victory Will Be A Double Victory.

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

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

The Holy Passion Of Friendship Is Of So Sweet And Steady And Loyal And Enduring A Nature That It Will Last Through A Whole Lifetime, If Not Asked To Lend Money In The End, We Will Remember Not The Words Of Our Enemies, But The Silence Of Our Friends

When People Get Caught Up With That Which Is Right And They Are Willing To Sacrifice For It, There Is No Stopping Point Short Of Victory.

In No Sense Do I Advocate Evading Or Defying The Law . . That Would Lead To Anarchy.

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.

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.

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

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

...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.

I Knew That I Could Never Again Raise My Voice Against The Violence Of The Oppressed In The Ghettos Without Having First Spoken Clearly To The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World Today - My Own Government.... There Is Something Strangely Inconsistent About A Nation And A Press That Would Praise You When You Say, 'be Nonviolent Toward Jim Clark,' But Will Curse And Damn You When You Say, 'be Nonviolent Toward Little Brown Vietnamese Children!' There Is Something Wrong With That Press.

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

As A Young Man With Most Of My Life Ahead Of Me, I Decided Early To Give My Life To Something Eternal And Absolute. Not To These Little Gods That Are Here Today And Gone Tomorrow. But To God Who Is The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever.

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.

He (jesus) Knew That The Old Eye-for-eye Philosophy Would Leave Everyone Blind. He Did Not Seek To Overcome Evil With Evil. He Overcame Evil With Good. Although Crucified By Hate, He Responded With Aggressive Love.

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

I Believe That Unarmed Truth And Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word In Reality. This Is Why Right, Temporarily Defeated, Is Stronger Than Evil Triumphant.

It Is Quite Easy For Me To Think Of A God Of Love Mainly Because I Grew Up In A Family Where Love Was Central And Where Lovely Relationships Were Ever Present.

The Way Of Acquiescence Leads To Moral And Spiritual Suicide. The Way Of Violence Leads To Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers. But, The Way Of Nonviolence Leads To Redemption And The Creation Of The Beloved Community.

Beloved Community

Make A Career Of Humanity. Commit Yourself To The Struggle For Equal Rights.

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

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.

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

We Must Develop A Federal Program Of Public Works, Retraining, And Jobs For All - So That None, White Or Black, Will Have Cause To Feel Threatened . . . There Is Nothing Except Shortsightedness To Prevent Us From Guaranteeing An Annual Minimum And Livable Income For Every American Family.

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

Evil Must Be Attacked By. . . The Day To Day Assault Of The Battering Rams Of Justice.

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.

I Have A Dream That One Day On The Red Hills Of Georgia, Sons Of Former Slaves And Sons Of Former Slave-owners Will Be Able To Sit Down Together At The Table Of Brotherhood. I Have A Dream That One Day, Even The State Of Mississippi, A State Sweltering With The Heat Of Injustice, Sweltering With The Heat Of Oppression, Will Be Transformed Into A Oasis Of Freedom And Justice. I Have A Dream 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 Content Of Their Character. I Have A Dream Today!

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.

Jesus Is Not An Impractical Idealist; He Is The Practical Realist.

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

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.

One Day The South Will Know That When These Disinherited Children Of God Sat Down At Lunch Counters, They Were In Reality Standing Up For What Is Best In The American Dream And For The Most Sacred Values In Our Judaeo-christian Heritage, Thereby Bringing Our Nation Back To Those Great Wells Of Democracy Which Were Dug Deep By The Founding Fathers In Their Formulation Of The Constitution And The Declaration Of Independence.

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

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

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

Whatever Your Life's Work Is, Do It Well. A Man Should Do His Job So Well That The Living, The Dead, And The Unborn Could Do It No Better.

We Must Work Passionately And Indefatigably To Bridge The Gulf Between Our Scientific Progress And Our Moral Progress. One Of The Great Problems Of Mankind Is That We Suffer From A Poverty Of The Spirit Which Stands In Glaring Contrast To Our Scientific And Technological Abundance. The Richer We Have Become Materially, The Poorer We Have Become Morally And Spiritually.

We Must Move Past Indecision To Action. We Must Find New Ways To Speak For Peace In Vietnam And For Justice Throughout The Developing World, A World That Borders On Our Doors. If We Do Not Act, We Shall Surely Be Dragged Down The Long, Dark, And Shameful Corridors Of Time Reserved For Those Who Possess Power Without Compassion, Might Without Morality, And Strength Without Sight.

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

Life Isn't Worth Living Until You Have Found Something Worth Dying For.

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

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

We Are Called To Speak For The Weak, For The Voiceless, For The Victims Of Our Nation And For Those It Calls Enemy, For No Document From Human Hands Can Make These Humans Any Less Our Brothers And Sisters.

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

Returning Hate, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night That Is Already Void Of Stars. Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness: Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate: Only Love Can Do That.

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

The Whirlwinds Of Revolt Will Continue To Shake The Foundations Of Our Nation Until The Bright Day Of Justice Emerges.

I Have A Dream Speech

Of Course, There Is Nothing New About This Kind Of Civil Disobedience. It Was Seen Sublimely In The Refusal Of Shadrach, Meshach And Abednego To Obey The Laws Of Nebuchadnezzar Because A Higher Moral Law Was Involved. It Was Practiced Superbly By The Early Christians Who Were Willing To Face Hungry Lions And The Excruciating Pain Of Chopping Blocks, Before Submitting To Certain Unjust Laws Of The Roman Empire.

The Strong Man Is The Man Who Can Stand Up For His Rights And Not Hit Back.

You Are Resisting, But You've Come To See That Tactically As Well As Morally, It Is Better To Be Nonviolent.if One Would, Didn't Want To Deal With The Moral Questions, It Would Just Be Impractical For The Negro To Talk About Making His Struggle A Violent One.

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.

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