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I've Told The Kids In The Ghettos That Violence Won't Solve Their Problems, But Then They Ask Me, And Rightly So; "why Does The Government Use Massive Doses Of Violence To Bring About The Change It Wants In The World?" After This I Knew That I Could No Longer Speak Against The Violence In The Ghettos Without Also Speaking Against The Violence Of My Government.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I've Told The Kids

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I've Told The Kids In The Ghettos That Violence Won't Solve Their Problems, But Then They Ask Me, And Rightly So; "why Does The Government Use Massive Doses Of Violence To Bring About The Change It Wants In The World?" After This I Knew That I Could No Longer Speak Against The Violence In The Ghettos Without Also Speaking Against The Violence Of My Government.

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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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Every Man [human Being] Is An Heir To A Legacy Of Dignity And Worth

We As Christians Have A Mandate To Be Nonconformists.

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This Is The Great New Problem Of Mankind. We Have Inherited A Large House, A Great ‘world House’ In Which We Have To Live Together– Black And White, Easterner And Westerner, Gentile And Jew, Catholic And Protestant, Muslim And Hindu– A Family Unduly Separated In Ideas, Culture And Interest, Who, Because We Can Never Again Live Apart, Must Learn Somehow To Live With Each Other In Peace.

Black And White

If I Lived In China Or Even Russia, Or Any Totalitarian Country, Maybe I Could Understand Some Of These Illegal Injunctions. ... But Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Assembly. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of Speech. Somewhere I Read Of The Freedom Of The Press. Somewhere I Read That The Greatness Of America Is The Right To Protest For Right.

Ultimately A Great Nation Is A Compassionate Nation.

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Capital Punishment Is Against The Best Judgment Of Modern Criminology And, Above All, Against The Highest Expression Of Love In The Nature Of God.

The Universe Is On The Side Of Justice

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

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

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

Dignity Of Work

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If A Person Sweeps Streets For A Living, He Should Sweep Them As Michelangelo Painted, As Beethoven Composed, As Shakespear Wrote.

Power Is The Ability To Achieve Purpose.

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

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

We Have A Great Dream. It Started Way Back In 1776, And God Grant That America Will Be True To Her Dream.

An Individual Has Not Started Living Until He Can Rise Above The Narrow Confines Of His Individualistic Concerns To The Broader Concerns Of All Humanity.

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

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

If A Man Has Not Discovered Anything So Dying Is Not Worth Living

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

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

I'm Concerned About Justice. I'm Concerned About Brotherhood. I'm Concerned About Truth. And When One Is Concerned About These, He Can Never Advocate Violence.

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.

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.

The Existence Of Poverty In The Us Should Not Be Accepted As A Necessary Evil Or Insoluble Problem, But Should Be Considered A Crisis Requiring Emergency Measures. It Is A Matter Of Will And Priorities, Not A Matter Of Resources.

We Must Develop And Maintain The Capacity To Forgive. He Who Is Devoid Of The Power To Forgive Is Devoid Of The Power To Love.

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.

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

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

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

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.

What You Get With Violence Can Be Maintained Only With Violence

We Can Walk Through The Darkest Night With The Radiant Conviction That All Things Work Together For The Good.

Working Together

There Is A Magnificent New Militancy Within The Negro Community All Across This Nation. And I Welcome This As A Marvelous Development. The Negro Of America Is Saying He's Determined To Be Free And He Is Militant Enough To Stand Up.

All Men Are Interdependent. Every Nation Is An Heir Of A Vast Treasury Of Ideas And Labor To Which Both The Living And The Dead Of All Nations Have Contributed. Whether We Realize It Or Not, Each Of Us Lives Eternally 'in The Red.' We Are Everlasting Debtors To Known And Unknown Men And Women.

Love Is Creative, Understanding Goodwill For All Men. It Is The Refusal To Defeat Any Individual. When You Rise To The Level Of Love, Of Its Great Beauty And Power, You Seek Only To Defeat Evil Systems. Individuals Who Happen To Be Caught Up In That System, You Love, But You Seek To Defeat The System.

America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

I Have A Dream Speech

Now There Is A Final Reason I Think That Jesus Says, 'love Your Enemies.' It Is This: That Love Has Within It A Redemptive Power. And There Is A Power There That Eventually Transforms Individuals.

If You Will Protest Courageously, And Yet With Dignity And Christian Love, When The History Books Are Written In Future Generations, The Historians Will Have To Pause And Say, "there Lived A Great People-a Black People-who Injected New Meaning And Dignity Into The Veins Of Civilization.

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 Are Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. Procrastination Is Still The Thief Of Time. Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residues Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words ‘too Late’.

Procrastination

Non-violent Direct Action Seeks To Create Such A Crisis And Establish Such Creative Tension That A Community That Has Constantly Refused To Negotiate Is Forced To Confront The Issue. It Seeks So To Dramatize The Issue That It Can No Longer Be Ignored... I Am Not Afraid Of The Word Tension. I Have Earnestly Worked And Preached Against Violent Tension, And There Is A Type Of Constructive Tension That Is Necessary For Growth.

In The Current Struggle, There Is One Positive Course Of Action. There Is No Alternative, For The Alternative Would Connote A Rear March.

We Are Now Faced With The Fact 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. This Is No Time For Apathy Or Complacency. This Is A Time For Vigorous And Postive Action.

We Have Deluded Ourselves Into Believing The Myth That Capitalism Grew And Prospered Out Of The Protestant Ethic Of Hard Work And Sacrifices. Capitalism Was Built On The Exploitation Of Black Slaves And Continues To Thrive On The Exploitation Of The Poor, Both Black And White, Both Here And Abroad.

Black And White

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

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

Inhumanity To Man

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

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.

For All Of Us Today, The Battle Is In Our Hands. The Road Ahead Is Not Altogether A Smooth One. There Are No Broad Highways To Lead Us Easily And Inevitably To Quick Solutions. We Must Keep Going.

An Individual Has Not Begun To Live Until He Can Rise Above The Narrow Horizons Of His Particular Individualistic Concerns To The Broader Concerns Of All Humanity. And This Is One Of The Big Problems Of Life, That So Many People Never Quite Get To The Point Of Rising Above Self. And So They End Up The Tragic Victims Of Self-centeredness. They End Up The Victims Of Distorted And Disrupted Personality.

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

I Too Am Compelled To Carry The Gospel Of Freedom Beyond My Particular Hometown.

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

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.

Unity Has Never Meant Uniformity.

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.

There Is No Gain Without Struggle.

Unfortunately, Most Of The Major Denominations Still Practice Segregation In Local Churches, Hospitals, Schools, And Other Church Institutions. It Is Appalling That The Most Segregated Hour Of Christian America Is Eleven O'clock On Sunday Morning, The Same Hour When Many Are Standing To Sing: "in Christ There Is No East Nor West.

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.

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.

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

March On Washington

The Decision We Must Make Now Is Whether We Will Give Our Allegiance To Outmoded And Unjust Customs Or To The Ethical Demands Of The Universe. As Christians We Owe Our Allegiance To God And His Will, Rather Than To Man And His Folkways

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.

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."

We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men.

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.

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 Have Decided To Stick With Love. Hate Is Too Great A Burden To Bear.

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 Negroes Of America Had Taken The President, The Press And The Pulpit At Their Word When They Spoke In Broad Terms Of Freedom And Justice. But The Absence Of Brutality And Unregenerate Evil Is Not The Presence Of Justice. To Stay Murder Is Not The Same Thing As To Ordain Brotherhood.

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.

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

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

Like A Boil That Must Be Opened With All Its Ugliness To The Natural Medicines Of Air And Light, Injustice Must Be Exposed To The Light Of Human Conscience Before It Can Be Cured.

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

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

I Choose To Give My Life For Those Who Have Been Left Out Of The Sunlight Of Opportunity

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

History Is The Long And Tragic Story Of The Fact That Privileged Groups Seldom Give Up Their Privileges Voluntarily.

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.

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

Somehow This Madness Must Cease. We Must Stop Now. I Speak As A Child Of God And Brother To The Suffering Poor Of Vietnam. I Speak For Those Whose Land Is Being Laid Waste, Whose Homes Are Being Destroyed, Whose Culture Is Being Subverted. I Speak For The Poor In America Who Are Paying The Double Price Of Smashed Hopes At Home And Death And Corruption In Vietnam. I Speak As A Citizen Of The World, For The World As It Stands Aghast At The Path We Have Taken. I Speak As An American To The Leaders Of My Own Nation. The Great Initiative In This War Is Ours. The Initiative To Stop It Must Be Ours.

Lukewarm Acceptance Is More Bewildering Than Outright Rejection.

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

We Should Never Forget That Everything Adolph Hitler Did In Germany Was "legal" And Everything The Hungarian Freedom Fighers Did In Hungary Was "illegal." It Was "illegal" To Aid And Comfort A Jew In Hitler's Germany.

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?

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

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

For You Will Never Be What You Ought To Be Until They [your Fellow Humans] Are What They Ought To Be.

Justice Denied Anywhere Diminishes Justice Everywhere.

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

An Eye For An Eye Leaves Everybody Blind.

Before It Is Too Late, We Must Narrow The Gaping Chasm Between Our Proclomations Of Peace And Our Lowly Deeds Which Precipitate And Perpetuate War.

There Is Nothing More Tragic In All The World Than To Know Right And Not To Do It.

If We Are Going To Achieve A Real Equality, The U.s. Will Have To Adopt A Modified Form Of Socialism.

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.

Even Though I Have Never Had An Abrupt Conversion Experience, Religion Has Been Real To Me And Closely Knitted To Life. In Fact The Two Cannot Be Separated; Religion For Me Is Life.

There Is Little Hope For Us Until We Become Tough-minded Enough To Break Loose From The Shackles Of Prejudice, Half-truths, And Downright Ignorance. The Shape Of The World Today Does Not Permit Us The Luxury Of Soft Mindedness. A Nation Or A Civilization That Continues To Produce Soft Minded Men Purchases Its Own Spiritual Death On An Installment Plan.

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

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

I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

In This Revolution, No Plans Have Been Written For Retreat. Those Who Will Not Get Into Step Will Find That The Parade Has Passed Them By.

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. . . .

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

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

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

Justice Is Love Correcting That Which Revolts Against Love.

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

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!

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!

To Sway An Audience, You Must Watch Them As You Speak.

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.

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

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.

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.

If We Do An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth, We Will Be A Blind And Toothless Nation.

It Is Better To Be The Recipient Of Violence Than The Inflicter Of It, Since The Latter Only Multiplies The Existence Of Violence And Bitterness In The Universe, While The Former May Develop A Sense Of Shame In The Opponent, And Thereby Bring About A Transformation And Change Of Heart.

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate.

Loving Your Enemies

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.

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

Civil Rights Leaders

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John Philpot Curran

Pope Benedict XVI

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