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I Often Feel Like Saying, When I Hear The Question 'people Aren't Ready,' That It's Like Telling A Person Who Is Trying To Swim, 'don't Jump In That Water Until You Learn How To Swim.' When Actually You Will Never Learn How To Swim Until You Get In The Water. And I Think People Have To Have An Opportunity To Develop Themselves And Govern Themselves.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Often Feel Like

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Often Feel Like Saying, When I Hear The Question 'people Aren't Ready,' That It's Like Telling A Person Who Is Trying To Swim, 'don't Jump In That Water Until You Learn How To Swim.' When Actually You Will Never Learn How To Swim Until You Get In The Water. And I Think People Have To Have An Opportunity To Develop Themselves And Govern Themselves.

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Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater. [...] When You Start Hating Anybody, It Destroys The Very Center Of Your Creative Response To Life And The Universe; So Love Everybody.

The Surest Way To Be Happy Is To Seek Happiness For Others.

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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.

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

In Order To Be True To One's Conscience And True To God, A Righteous Man Has No Alternative But To Refuse To Cooperate With An Evil System.

Nonviolence Is The Most Potent Technique For Oppressed People. Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

So Long As I Do Not Firmly And Irrevocably Possess The Right To Vote I Do Not Possess Myself. I Cannot Make Up My Mind - It Is Made Up For Me. I Cannot Live As A Democratic Citizen, Observing The Laws I Have Helped To Enact - I Can Only Submit To The Edict Of Others.

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

There Comes A Time When The Cup Of Endurance Runs Over, And Men Are No Longer Willing To Be Plunged Into The Abyss Of Despair.

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

Far From Being Disturbed By The Presence Of The Church, The Power Structure Of The Average Community Is Consoled By The Church's Often Vocal Sanction Of Things As They Are.

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

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

Lukewarm Acceptance Is More Bewildering Than Outright Rejection.

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

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I Will Always Remember My Delight When Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - An Unlettered Woman Of Unusual Intelligence - Told How An Operator Demanded That She Get Off The Bus After Paying Her Fare And Board It Again By The Back Door, And Then Drove Away Before She Could Get There. She Turned To Judge Carter And Said: "when They Count The Money, They Do Not Know Negro Money From White Money.

To Be Negro In America Is To Hope Against Hope.

The Problem With Hatred And Violence Is That They Intensity The Fears Of The White Majority, And Leave Them Less Ashamed Of Their Prejudices Toward Negroes.

I Think A Revolution Can Survive Without Single Centralized Leadership.

I Imagine You Already Know That I Am Much More Socialistic In My Economic Theory Than Capitalistic.

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We Must Stand Up And Say, "i'm Black And I'm Beautiful," And This Self-affirmation Is The Black Man's Need, Made Compelling By The White Man's Crimes Against Him.

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.

My Study Of Gandhi Convinced Me That True Pacifism Is Not Nonresistance To Evil, But Nonviolent Resistance To Evil. Between The Two Positions, There Is A World Of Difference. Gandhi Resisted Evil With As Much Vigor And Power As The Violent Resister, But True Pacifism Is Not Unrealistic Submission To Evil Power. It Is Rather A Courageous Confrontation Of Evil By The Power Of Love. . . .

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In The Process Of Gaining Our Rightful Place, We Must Not Be Guilty Of Wrongful Deeds. Let Us Not Seek To Satisfy Our Thirst For Freedom By Drinking From The Cup Of Bitterness And Hatred. We Must Forever Conduct Our Struggle On The High Plane Of Dignity And Discipline.

I Am Disappointed With America. And There Can Be No Great Disappointment Where There Is Not Great Love. I Am Disappointed With Our Failure To Deal Positively And Forthrightly With The Triple Evils Of Racism, Economic Exploitation, And Militarism. We Are Presently Moving Down A Dead-end Road That Can Lead To National Disaster. America Has Strayed To The Far Country Of Racism And Militarism.

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The Major Problem Of Life Is Learning How To Handle The Costly Interruptions. The Door That Slams Shut, The Plan That Got Sidetracked, The Marriage That Failed. Or That Lovely Poem That Didn't Get Written Because Someone Knocked On The Door.

If The Negro Is To Achieve The Goal Of Integration, He Must Organize Himself Into A Militant And Nonviolent Mass Movement.

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Cowardice Is Submissive Surrender To Circumstances.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

God Made The World From Nothing, And If We Can Be Nothing, Then God Can Make Something Of Us.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing.

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

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You Have Very Little Morally Persuasive Power With People Who Can Feel Your Underlying Contempt.

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

Racial Understanding Is Not Something We Find, But Something That We Must Create. Through Education, We Seek To Change Attitudes.

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Violence Ends Up Defeating Itself. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers.

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

It Is Not A Sign Of Weakness, But A Sign Of High Maturity, To Rise To The Level Of Self-criticism.

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

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

What Good Is Having The Right To Sit At A Lunch Counter If You Can't Afford To Buy A Hamburger?

We've Learned To Fly The Air Like Birds, We've Learned To Swim The Seas Like Fish, And Yet We Haven't Learned To Walk The Earth As Brothers And Sisters

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"when I Speak Of Love I Am Not Speaking Of Some Sentimental And Weak Response. I Am Not Speaking Of That Force Which Is Just Emotional Bosh. I Am Speaking Of That Force Which All Of The Great Religions Have Seen As The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life. Love Is Somehow The Key That Unlocks The Door Which Leads To Ultimate Reality."

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

Every Genuine Expression Of Love Grows Out Of A Consistent And Total Surrender To God.

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.

Science Deals Mainly With Facts; Religion Deals Mainly With Values. The Two Are Not Rivals. They Are Complementary.

Never, Never Be Afraid To Do What's Right.

Civil Rights Leaders

Everything That We See Is A Shadow Cast By That Which We Do Not See.

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

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

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

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.

I Cannot Forget That The Nobel Prize For Peace Was Also A Commission - A Commission To Work Harder Than I Had Ever Worked Before For "the Brotherhood Of Man".

Brotherhood Of Man

Let Us Develop A Kind Of Dangerous Unselfishness.

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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.

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

It Really Boils Down To This: That All Life Is Interrelated. We Are All Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tired Into A Single Garment Of Destiny. Whatever Affects One Destiny, Affects All Indirectly.

Was Not Abraham Lincoln An Extremist? - "this Nation Cannot Survive Half Slave And Half Free."

I Guess One Of The Great Agonies Of Life Is That We Are Constantly Trying To Finish That Which Is Unfinishable

In A Real Sense Faith Is Total Surrender To God .

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.

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.

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

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 Was Not Afraid Of The Words Of The Violent, But Of The Silence Of The Honest.

One Of The Great Tragedies Of Life Is That Men Seldom Bridge The Gulf Between Practice And Profession, Between Doing And Saying.

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

Love Your Enemies

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

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

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

Nonviolent Action, The Negro Saw, Was The Way To Supplement, Not Replace, The Progress Of Change. It Was The Way To Divest Himself Of Passivity Without Arraying Himself In Vindictive Force.

If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable.

As Television Beamed The Image Of This Extraordinary Gathering Across The Border Oceans, Everyone Who Believed In Man's Capacity To Better Himself Had A Moment Of Inspiration And Confidence In The Future Of The Human Race.

The Ultimate Solution To The Race Problem Lies In The Willingness Of Men To Obey The Unenforceable.

If A Man Hasn't Found Anything Worth Dying For, He Hasn't Anything Worth Living For.

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.

When We Look At Modern Man, We Have To Face The Fact...that Modern Man Suffers From A Kind Of Poverty Of The Spirit, Which Stands In Glaring Contrast To His Scientific And Technological Abundance; We've Learned To Fly The Air Like Birds, We've Learned To Swim The Seas Like Fish, And Yet We Haven't Learned To Walk The Earth As Brothers And Sisters.

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.

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

Breaking Silence

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

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

The 'tide In The Affairs Of Men' Does Not Remain At The Flood; It Ebbs. We May Cry Out Desperately For Time To Pause In Her Passage, But Time Is Deaf To Every Plea And Rushes On. Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residue Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words: 'too Late...'

A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard.

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.

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.

Violence As A Way Of Achieving Racial Justice Is Both Impractical And Immoral. It Is Impractical Because It Is A Descending Spiral Ending In Destruction For All. It Is Immoral Because It Seeks To Humiliate The Opponent Rather Than Win His Understanding; It Seeks To Annihilate Rather Than To Convert. Violence Is Immoral Because It Thrives On Hatred Rather Than Love.

The Whole World Must See That Israel Must Exist And Has The Right To Exist, And Is One Of The Great Outposts Of Democracy In The World.

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.

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

I Cannot Sit Idly By In Atlanta And Not Be Concerned About What Happens In Birmingham.

Injustice Anywhere

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.

Sooner Or Later, All The Peoples Of The World Will Have To Discover A Way To Live Together In Peace, And Thereby Transform This Pending Cosmic Elegy Into A Creative Psalm Of Brotherhood.

The Oppressed Must Never Allow The Conscience Of The Oppressor To Slumber. Religion Reminds Every Man That He Is His Brother's Keeper.

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

A Church That Has Lost Its Voice For Justice Is A Church That Has Lost Its Relevance In The World.

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.

If America Does Not Use Her Vast Resources Of Wealth To End Poverty And Make It Possible For All Of God's Children To Have The Basic Necessities Of Life, She Too Will Go To Hell.

Jazz Speaks For Life. The Blues Tell The Story Of Life's Difficulties, And If You Think For A Moment, You Will Realize That They Take The Hardest Realities Of Life And Put Them Into Music, Only To Come Out With Some New Hope Or Sense Of Triumph.

These Are The Times For Real Choices And Not False Ones. We Are At The Moment When Our Lives Must Be Placed On The Line If Our Nation Is To Survive Its Own Folly. Every Man Of Humane Convictions Must Decide On The Protest That Best Suits His Convictions, But We Must All Protest.

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

I Would Urge You To Give Priority To The Search For God. Allow His Spirit To Permeate Your Being. ... If You Do Not Have A Deep And Patient Faith In God, You Will Be Powerless To Face The Delays, Disappointments, And Vicissitudes That Inevitably Come.

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

A Nation Or Civilization That Continues To Produce Soft-minded Men Purchases Its Own Spiritual Death On The Installment Plan.

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

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

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.

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

The Job Of The School Is To Teach So Well That Family Background Is No Longer An Issue.

Life's Most Persistent And Urgent Question Is: What Are You Doing For Others? Living Is A Form Of Not Being Sure, Not Knowing What Next Or How. The Moment You Know How, You Begin To Die A Little.

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

Temporary Setbacks

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

The Means By Which We Live Have Outdistanced The Ends For Which We Live.

Inspirational Life

Love Is Basic For The Very Survival Of Mankind. I'm Convinced That Love Is The Only Absolute Ultimately; Love Is The Highest Good. He Who Loves Has Somehow Discovered The Meaning Of Ultimate Reality. He Who Hates Does Not Know God; He Who Hates Has No Knowledge Of God. Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

I Say To You That Our Goal Is Freedom, And I Believe We Are Going To Get There Because However Much She Strays Away From It, The Goal Of America Is Freedom.

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

There Is Nothing More Majestic Than The Determined Courage Of Individuals Willing To Suffer And Sacrifice For Their Freedom And Dignity.

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.

The Hope Of A Secure And Livable World Lies With Disciplined Nonconformists, Who Are Dedicated To Justice, Peace And Brotherhood. The Trailblazers In Human, Academic, Scientific And Religious Freedom Have Always Been Nonconformists. In Any Cause That Concerns The Progress Of Mankind, Put Your Faith In The Nonconformist!

It Was Argued That The Negro Was Inferior By Nature Because Of Noah's Curse Upon The Children Of Ham.... The Greatest Blasphemy Of The Whole Ugly Process Was That The White Man Ended Up Making God His Partner In The Exploitation Of The Negro.

We Must Have The Faith That Things Will Work Out Somehow, That God Will Make A Way For Us When There Seems No Way.

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.

Was Not Jesus An Extremist For Love: "love Your Enemies, Bless Them That Curse You, Do Good To Them That Hate You, And Pray For Them Which Despitefully Use You, And Persecute You." Was Not Amos An Extremist For Justice: "let Justice Roll Down Like Waters And Righteousness Like An Ever-flowing Stream." Was Not Paul An Extremist For The Christian Gospel: "i Bear In My Body The Marks Of The Lord Jesus."

Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity. Hate Destroys A Man's Sense Of Values And His Objectivity. It Causes Him To Describe The Beautiful As Ugly And The Ugly As Beautiful, And To Confuse The True With The False And The False With The True.

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.

I Oppose The War In Vietnam Because I Love America. I Speak Out Against It Not In Anger But With Anxiety And Sorrow In My Heart, And Above All With A Passionate Desire To See Our Beloved Country Stand As A Moral Example Of The World.

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

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

This Hour In History Needs A Dedicated Circle Of Transformed Nonconformists. Our Planet Teeters On The Brink Of Annihilation; Dangerous Passions Of Pride, Hatred, And Selfishness Are Enthroned In Our Lives; And Men Do Reverence Before False Gods Of Nationalism And Materialism. The Saving Of Our World From Pending Doom Will Come, Not Through The Complacent Adjustment Of The Conforming Majority, But Through The Creative Maladjustment Of A Nonconforming Minority.

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.

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.

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.

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

Let The Negro March. Let Him Make Pilgrimages To City Hall. Let Him Go On Freedom Rides. And Above All, Make An Effort To Understand Why He Must Do This. For If His Frustration And Despair Are Allowed To Continue Piling Up, Millions Of Negroes Will Seek Solace And Security In Black-nationalist Ideologies. And This, Inevitably, Would Lead To A Frightening Racial Nightmare.

We Must Meet The Forces Of Hate With The Power Of Love.

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.

Life's Piano Can Only Produce Melodies Of Brotherhood (and Sisterhood) When It Is Recognized That The Black Keys Are As Basic, Necessary And Beautiful As The White Keys.

Many White Americans Of Good Will Have Never Connected Bigotry With Economic Exploitation. They Have Deplored Prejudice But Tolerated Or Ignored Economic Injustice.

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

We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now.

Breaking Silence

The Purpose Of Direct Action Is To Create A Situation So Crisis-packed That It Will Inevitably Open The Door To Negotiation.

We Must Be Concerned Not Merely About Who Murdered Them, But About The System, The Way Of Life, The Philosophy Which Produced The Murderers .

We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now. In This Unfolding Conundrum Of Life And History, There Is Such A Thing As Being Too Late. Procrastination Is Still The Thief Of Time. Life Often Leaves Us Standing Bare, Naked, And Dejected With A Lost Opportunity. . . . Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residues Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words, 'too Late.' ... Now Let Us Begin. Now Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To The Long And Bitter, But Beautiful, Struggle For A New World.

Procrastination

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.

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

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

I Have A Dream Speech

There Is Within Human Nature An Amazing Potential For Goodness.

I've Decided To Stick With Love.

Many Of The Ugly Pages Of American History Have Been Obscured And Forgotten....america Owes A Debt Of Justice Which It Has Only Begun To Pay. If It Loses The Will To Finish Or Slackens In Its Determination, History Will Recall Its Crimes And The Country That Would Be Great Will Lack The Most Indispensable Element Of Greatness-justice.

The Ultimate Tragedy Is Not The Oppression And Cruelty By The Bad People But The Silence Over That By The Good People.

Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

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

When Evil Men Plot, Good Men Must Plan. When Evil Men Burn And Bomb, Good Men Must Build And Bind. When Evil Men Shout Ugly Words Of Hatred, Good Men Must Commit Themselves To The Glories Of Love.

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

Breaking Silence

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

Black Power Alone Is No More Insurance Against Social Injustice Than White Power.

A World War - God Forbid! - Will Leave Only Smoldering Ashes As A Mute Testimony Of A Human Race Whose Folly Led Inexorably To Untimely Death. Yet There Are Those Who Sincerely Feel That Disarmament Is An Evil And International Negotiation Is An Abominable Waste Of Time.

There Is Nothing But A Lack Of Social Vision To Prevent Us From Paying An Adequate Wage To Every American Citizen Whether He Be A Hospital Worker, Laundry Worker, Maid Or Day Laborer

A Nation That Will Keep People In Slavery For 244 Years Will "thingify" Them And Make Them Things. And Therefore, They Will Exploit Them And Poor People Generally Economically. And A Nation That Will Exploit Economically Will Have To Have Foreign Investments And Everything Else, And It Will Have To Use Its Military Might To Protect Them. All Of These Problems Are Tied Together. What I'm Saying Today Is That We Must Go From This Convention And Say, "america, You Must Be Born Again!"

I Still Believe That One Day Mankind Will Bow Before The Altars Of God And Be Crowned Triumphant Over War And Bloodshed, And Nonviolent Redemptive Goodwill Will Proclaim The Rule Of The Land.

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.

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

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.

Look To A Day When People Will Not Be Judged By The Color Of Their Skin.

Don't Let Anybody Take Your Manhood.

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.

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.

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