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I Was Much More Afraid In Montgomery When I Had A Gun In My House. When I Decided That I Couldn’t Keep A Gun, I Came Face-to-face With The Question Of Death And I Dealt With It. From That Point On, I No Longer Needed A Gun Nor Have I Been Afraid. Had We Become Distracted By The Question Of My Safety We Would Have Lost The Moral Offensive And Sunk To The Level Of Our Oppressors.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Was Much More

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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I Was Much More Afraid In Montgomery When I Had A Gun In My House. When I Decided That I Couldn’t Keep A Gun, I Came Face-to-face With The Question Of Death And I Dealt With It. From That Point On, I No Longer Needed A Gun Nor Have I Been Afraid. Had We Become Distracted By The Question Of My Safety We Would Have Lost The Moral Offensive And Sunk To The Level Of Our Oppressors.

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Everyone Can Be Great, Because Everyone Can Serve.

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

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

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You Don't Have To See The Whole Staircase, Just Take The First Step.

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

If We Are To Have Peace On Earth, Our Loyalties Must Become Ecumenical Rather Than Sectional. Our Loyalties Must Transcend Our Race, Our Tribe, Our Class, And Our Nation; And This Means We Must Develop A World Perspective.

In Order To Love Your Enemies, You Must Begin By Analyzing Self.

But I Say To You, My Friends, There Are Certain Things In Our Nation And In The World Which I Am Proud To Be Maladjusted And Which I Hope All Men Of Good-will Will Be Maladjusted Until The Good Societies Realize.

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

Breaking Silence

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

When Evil Men Burn And Bomb, Good Men Must Build And Bind.

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

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

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

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

There Is No Easy Way To Create A World Where Men And Women Can Live Together... But If Such A World Is Created In Our Lifetime, It Will Be Done By Rejecting The Racism, Materialism, And Violence That Has Characterized Western Civilization And Especially By Working Toward A World Of Brotherhood, Cooperation, And Peace.

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

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

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.

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

There Is A Type Of Constructive Nonviolent Tension That Is Necessary For Growth

Without Justice, There Can Be No Peace.

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.

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

I Have A Dream Speech

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.

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

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.

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It Is Love That Will Save Our World And Our Civilization.

Our Children Need Our Presence, Not Our Presents.

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The Hope Of A Secure And Livable World Lies With Disciplined Nonconformists Who Are Dedicated To Justice, Peace And Brotherhood.

If A Man Is Called To Be A Street Sweeper, He Should Sweep Streets Even As A Michaelangelo Painted, Or Beethoven Composed Music Or Shakespeare Wrote Poetry. He Should Sweep Streets So Well That All The Hosts Of Heaven And Earth Will Pause To Say, 'here Lived A Great Street Sweeper Who Did His Job Well.

To Deny A Man A Job Is To Say That A Man Has No Right To Exist.

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.

Be True To What You Said On Paper.

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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.

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!

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

The Question Is No Longer Between Violence And Non-violence It Is Between Non-violence And Non-existence.

Education Must Enable One To Sift And Weigh Evidence, To Discern The True From The False, The Real From The Unreal, And The Facts From The Fiction.

When Our Days Become Dreary With Low-hovering Clouds And Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, We Will Know That We Are Living In The Creative Turmoil Of A Genuine Civilization Struggling To Be Born.

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.

America Must Begin The Struggle For Democracy At Home. The Advocacy Of Free Elections In Europe By American Officials Is Hypocrisy When Free Elections Are Not Held In Great Sections Of America.

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

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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.

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

If A City Has A 30% Negro Population, Then It Is Logical To Assume That Negroes Should Have At Least 30% Of The Jobs In Any Particular Company, And Jobs In All Categories Rather Than Only In Menial Areas.

Music Is The Best Consolation For A Despaired Man

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Nonviolence Is Not Sterile Passivity, But A Powerful Moral Force Which Makes For Social Transformation.

Social Transformation

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

Be An Artist At Whatever You Do. Even If You Are A Street Sweeper, Be The Michelangelo Of Street Sweepers.

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

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

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Bitterness.

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.

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

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal. That Time Has Come For Us In Relation To Vietnam. A Nation That Continues Year After Year To Spend More Money On Military Defense Than On Programs Of Social Uplift, Is Approaching Spiritual Death.i Knew That America Would Never Invest The Necessary Funds Or Energies In Rehabilitation Of Its Poor So Long As Adventures Like Vietnam Continued To Draw Men And Skills And Money Like Some Demonic Destructive Suction Tube. So I Was Increasingly Compelled To See The War As An Enemy Of The Poor.

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.

Don't Let Anybody Make You Think That God Chose America As His Divine, Messianic Force To Be A Sort Of Policeman Of The Whole World.

We As Christians Have A Mandate To Be Nonconformists.

Human Progress Is Neither Automatic Nor Inevitable . . .

One Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change. Every Society Has Its Protectors Of Status Quo And Its Fraternities Of The Indifferent Who Are Notorious For Sleeping Through Revolutions. Today, Our Very Survival Depends On Our Ability To Stay Awake, To Adjust To New Ideas, To Remain Vigilant And To Face The Challenge Of Change.

We Must Learn That Passively To Accept An Unjust System Is To Cooperate With That System, And Thereby To Become A Participant In Its Evil.

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?

Cowardice Asks The Question, Is It Safe?

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.

The Silence Of The Good People Is More Dangerous Than The Brutality Of The Bad People

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy. Instead Of Diminishing Evil, It Multiplies It. Through Violence You May Murder The Liar, But You Cannot Murder The Lie, Nor Establish The Truth. Through Violence You May Murder The Hater, But You Do Not Murder Hate. In Fact, Violence Merely Increases Hate... Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness: Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate: Only Love Can Do That.

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

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Nothing To Lose

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Love Is The Only Force Capable Of Transforming An Enemy Into Friend.

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.

Violence Brings Only Temporary Victories; Violence, By Creating Many More Social Problems Than It Solves, Never Brings Permanent Peace.

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.

Our Destiny Is Tied Up With The Destiny Of America.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

A Law Is Unjust If It Is Inflicted On A Minority That, As A Result Of Being Denied The Right To Vote, Had No Part In Enacting Or Devising The Law. Who Can Say That The Legislature Of Alabama Which Set Up The State's Segregation Laws Was Democratically Elected?

A Third Reason Why We Should Love Our Enemies Is That Love Is The Only Force Capable Of Transforming An Enemy Into A Friend. We Never Get Rid Of An Enemy By Meeting Hate With Hate; We Get Rid Of An Enemy By Getting Rid Of Enmity. By Its Very Nature, Hate Destroys And Tears Down; By Its Very Nature, Love Creates And Builds Up. Love Transforms With Redemptive Power.

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.

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.

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World.

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.

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

White Man And Black Man, Jew And Gentile, Protestant And Catholic, Will Be Able To Hold Hands And Sing In The Words Of The Ancient Negro Spiritual, "free At Last, Free At Last. Thank God Almighty! We Are Free At Last!"

The Method Of Nonviolence Seeks Not To Humiliate And Not To Defeat The Oppressor, But It Seeks To Win His Friendship And His Understanding. And Thereby And Therefore The Aftermath Of This Method Is Reconciliation.

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.

I Have A Dream That One Day Every Valley Shall Be Exalted, Every Hill And Mountain Shall Be Made Low, The Rough Places Will Be Made Straight And The Glory Of The Lord Shall Be Revealed And All Flesh Shall See It Together.

Courageous Men Never Lose The Zest For Living Even Though Their Life Situation Is Zestless; Cowardly Men, Overwhelmed By The Uncertainties Of Life, Lose The Will To Live. We Must Constantly Build Dykes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear.

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.

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.

So When Jesus Says "love Your Enemies," He Is Setting Forth A Profound And Ultimately Inescapable Admonition.

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

The Sweltering Summer Of The Negro's Legitimate Discontent Will Not Pass Until There Is An Invigorating Autumn Of Freedom And Equality.

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

Breaking Silence

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Chuck Palahniuk

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