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If You Succumb To The Temptation Of Using Violence In The Struggle, Unborn Generations Will Be The Recipients Of A Long And Desolate Night Of Bitterness, And Your Chief Legacy To The Future Will Be An Endless Reign Of Meaningless Chaos.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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If You Succumb To

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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If You Succumb To The Temptation Of Using Violence In The Struggle, Unborn Generations Will Be The Recipients Of A Long And Desolate Night Of Bitterness, And Your Chief Legacy To The Future Will Be An Endless Reign Of Meaningless Chaos.

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Never Forget That Everything Hitler Did In Germany Was Legal.

Libertarian Party

Thought Provoking

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

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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.

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President Lyndon Johnson's High Spirits Were Marked As He Circulated Among The Many Guests Whom He Had Invited To Witness An Event He Confidently Felt To Be Historic, The Signing Of The 1965 Voting Rights Act.... The Bill That Lay On The Polished Mahogany Desk Was Born In Violence In Selma, Alabama, Where A Stubborn Sheriff... Had Stumbled Against The Future.

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

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

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.

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

Breaking Silence

The Old Law Of An Eye For An Eye Leaves Everyone Blind. It Destroys Communities And Makes Humanity Impossible. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers... In Winning Our Freedom, We Will So Appeal To You Heart And Conscience That We Will Win You In The Process.

There Is Nothing More Dangerous Than To Build A Society With A Large Segment Of People In That Society Who Feel That They Have No Stake In It; Who Feel That That Have Nothing To Lose. People Who Have Stake In Their Society, Protect That Society, But When They Don't Have It, They Unconsciously Want To Destroy It.

Nothing To Lose

If Physical Death Is The Price That I Must Pay To Free My White Brothers And Sisters From A Permanent Death Of The Spirit, Then Nothing Can Be More Redemptive.

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.

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I Know That God Is Not Going To Willfully Hurt Us. Why There Is Suffering Is The Business Of The Lord, But He Never Seems To Give Us More Than We Can Bear.

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

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.

Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It.

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.

Our Nettlesome Task Is To Discover How To Organize Our Strength Into Compelling Power.

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

Hate Multiplies Hate, Violence Multiplies Violence, And Toughness Multiplies Toughness In A Descending Spiral Of Destruction.

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

In Struggling For Human Dignity The Oppressed People Of The World Must Not Allow Themselves To Become Bitter Or Indulge In Hate Campaigns. To Retaliate With Hate And Bitterness Would Do Nothing But Intensify The Hate In The World. Along The Way Of Life, Someone Must Have Sense Enough And Morality Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate. This Can Be Done Only By Projecting The Ethics Of Love To The Center Of Our Lives.

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 You Can't Fly Then Run, If You Can't Run Then Walk, If You Can't Walk Then Crawl, But Whatever You Do You Have To Keep Moving Forward.

The Supreme Task Is To Organize And Unite People So That Their Anger Becomes A Transforming Force.

Whatever Effects One Directly, Effects All Indirectly.

I Admire The Good Samaritan, But I Don't Want To Be One.i Don't Want To Spend My Life Picking Up People By The Side Of The Road After They Have Been Beaten Up And Robbed.i Want To Change The Jericho Road, So That Everybody Has An Opportunity For A Job, Education, Security, Health.

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.

The Marvelous New Militancy Which Has Engulfed The Negro Community Must Not Lead Us To A Distrust Of All White People, For Many Of Our White Brothers, As Evidenced By Their Presence Here Today, Have Come To Realize That Their Destiny Is Tied Up With Our Destiny And Their Freedom Is Inextricably Bound To Our Freedom.

We Must Work Passionately And Unrelentingly For The Goal Of Freedom, But We Must Be Sure That Our Hands Are Clean In The Struggle. We Must Never Struggle With Falsehood, Hate, Or Malice. We Must Never Become Bitter.

Whenever The Early Christians Entered A Town The Power Structure Got Disturbed And Immediately Sought To Convict Them For Being "disturbers Of The Peace" And "outside Agitators." But They Went On With The Conviction That They Were "a Colony Of Heaven," And Had To Obey God Rather Than Man. They Were Small In Number But Big In Commitment. They Were Too God-intoxicated To Be "astronomically Intimidated." They Brought An End To Such Ancient Evils As Infanticide And Gladiatorial Contest.

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

It Is My Hope That As The Negro Plunges Deeper Into The Quest For Freedom And Justice He Will Plunge Even Deeper Into The Philosophy Of Non-violence.

I Knew That America Would Never Invest The Necessary Funds Of Energies In Rehabilitation Of Its Poor As Long As Adventures Like Vietnam Continued To Draw Men And Skills And Money Like Some Demonic Destructive Suction Tube.

The First Principle Of Value That We Need To Rediscover Is This: That All Reality Hinges On Moral Foundations. In Other Words, That This Is A Moral Universe, And That There Are Moral Laws Of The Universe Just As Abiding As The Physical Laws.

But Though I Was Initially Disappointed At Being Categorized As An Extremist, As I Continued To Think About The Matter I Gradually Gained A Measure Of Satisfaction From The Label. 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.”

Violence Is Immoral Because It Thrives On Hatred Rather Than Love. It Destroys Community And Makes Brotherhood Impossible. It Leaves Society In Monologue Rather Than Dialogue. Violence Ends By Defeating Itself. It Creates Bitterness In The Survivors And Brutality In The Destroyers.

Those Who Are Not Looking For Happiness Are The Most Likely To Find It, Because Those Who Are Searching Forget That The Surest Way To Be Happy Is To Seek Happiness For Others.

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.

One Who Condones Evils Is Just As Guilty As The One Who Perpetrates It.

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

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 A Power In Love That Our World Has Not Discovered Yet. Jesus Discovered It Centuries Ago. Mahatma Gandhi Of India Discovered It A Few Years Ago, But Most Men And Most Women Never Discover It. For They Believe In Hitting For Hitting; They Believe In An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth; They Believe In Hating For Hating; But Jesus Comes To Us And Says, 'this Isn't The Way.'

O America, How You've Taken Necessities From The Masses To Give Luxuries To The Classes.

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

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

We Must Substitute Courage For Caution.

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

You Can Kill The Dreamer, But You Can't Kill The Dream.

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

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

Whatever Your Life's Work Is, Do It Well.

I Won't Have Any Money To Leave Behind. I Won't Have The Fine And Luxurious Things Of Life To Leave Behind. But I Just Want To Leave A Committed Life Behind.

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.

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

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

Breaking Silence

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

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.

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

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

If The Cruelties Of Slavery Could Not Stop Us, The Opposition We Now Face Will Surely Fail. Because The Goal Of America Is Freedom, Abused And Scorned Tho' We May Be, Our Destiny Is Tied Up With America's Destiny.

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

To Dislocate The Functioning Of A City Without Destroying It Can Be More Effective Than A Riot Because It Can Be Longer-lasting, Costly To The Society But Not Wantonly Destructive, Moreover, It Is More Difficult For Government To Quell It By Superior Force.

Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!

Property Is Intended To Serve Life, And No Matter How Much We Surround It With Rights And Respect, It Has No Personal Being. It Is Part Of The Earth Man Walks On. It Is Not Man.

Before The Pilgrims Landed At Plymouth, We Were Here. Before The Pen Of Jefferson Etched Across The Pages Of History The Majestic Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, We Were Here. If The Inexpressible Cruelties Of Slavery Could Not Stop Us, The Opposition We Now Face Will Surely Fail. We Will Win Our Freedom Because The Sacred Heritage Of Our Nation And The Eternal Will Of God Are Embodied In Our Echoing Demands.

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal. Even When Pressed By The Demands Of Inner Truth, Men Do Not Easily Assume The Task Of Opposing Their Government's Policy, Especially In Time Of War. Nor Does The Human Spirit Move Without Great Difficulty Against All The Apathy Of Conformist Thought, Within One's Own Bosom And In The Surrounding World.

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

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.

This Faith Transforms The Whirlwind Of Despair Into A Warm And Reviving Breeze Of Hope. The Words Of A Motto Which A Generation Ago Were Commonly Found On The Wall In The Homes Of Devout Persons Need To Be Etched On Our Hearts: Fear Knocked At The Door. Faith Answered. There Was No One There.

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.

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.

We Can Dream Of An America, And A World, In Which Love And Not Money Are Civilization's Bottom Line.

We Were All Involved In The Death Of John Kennedy. We Tolerated Hate; We Tolerated The Sick Stimulation Of Violence In All Walks Of Life; And We Tolerated The Differential Application Of Law, Which Said That A Man's Life Was Sacred Only If We Agreed With His Views.

The Negro Is The Child Of Two Cultures - Africa And America. The Problem Is That In The Search For Wholeness All Too Many Negroes Seek To Embrace Only One Side Of Their Natures.

The Recent Statement Of Your Executive Committee Are The Sentiments Of My Own Heart And I Found Myself In Full Accord When I Read Its Opening Lines: "a Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal." That Time Has Come For Us In Relation To Vietnam. Some Of Us Who Have Already Begun To Break The Silence Of The Night Have Found That The Calling To Speak Is Often A Vocation Of Agony, But We Must Speak. We Must Speak With All The Humility That Is Appropriate To Our Limited Vision, But We Must Speak.

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

Wherever Schools Can Be Integrated Through The Busing Method, And Where It Won't Be Just A, A Terrible Inconvenience, I Think It Ought To Be Done.

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.

Everybody Can Be Great...because Anybody Can Serve. You Don't Have To Have A College Degree To Serve.

This Will Be The Day When We Shall Bring Into Full Realization The Dream Of American Democracy - A Dream Yet Unfulfilled. A Dream Of Equality Of Opportunity, Of Privilege And Property Widely Distributed; A Dream Of A Land Where Men Will Not Take Necessities From The Many To Give Luxuries To The Few.

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.

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

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

I Think A Revolution Can Survive Without Single Centralized Leadership.

The Hope Of The World Is Still In Dedicated Minorities. The Trail-blazers In Human, Scientific And Religious Freedom Have Always Been In A Minority.

I'm Very Glad Christ Tells Us To Love Our Neighbor And Not To Like Our Neighbor Because It's Hard To Like Someone Threatening Your Children And Throwing Fire Bombs Through Your Window, But He Asks Us To Love Them And That I Can Do

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?

Violence Often Brings About Momentary Results.

But While So Many White Americans Are Unaware Of Conditions Inside The Ghetto, There Are Very Few Ghetto Dwellers Who Are Unaware Of The Life Outside. The Television Sets Bombard Them Day By Day With The Opulence Of The Larger Society.

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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