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

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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It Is Love That

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

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If You Can't Be A Sun, Be A Star. For It Isn't By Size That You Win Or Fail. Be The Best Of Whatever You Are.

I Am Convinced That Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World. It Is Not An Expression Of Impractical Idealism, But Of Practical Realism.

If We Get Setbacks And If Something Happens Where The Civil Rights Bill Is Watered Down, For Instance, If The Negro Feels That He Can Do Nothing But Move From One Ghetto To Another And One Slum To Another, The Despair And The Disappointment Will Be So Great That It Will Be Very Difficult To Keep The Struggle Disciplined And Nonviolent.

We Are Challenged To Develop A World Perspective. No Individual Can Live Alone, No Nation Can Live Alone, And Anyone Who Feels That He Can Live Alone Is Sleeping Through A Revolution. The World In Which We Live Is Geographically One.

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.

Jazz Speaks For Life. The Blues Tell The Story Of Life's Difficulties.

Perhaps The Worst Sin In Life Is Knowing Right And Not Doing It.

[i]t Must Be Emphasized That Nonviolent Resistance Is Not A Method For Cowards; It Does Resist. If One Uses This Method Because He Is Afraid Or Merely Because He Lacks The Instruments Of Violence, He Is Not Truly Nonviolent. This Is Why Gandhi Often Said That If Cowardice Is The Only Alternative To Violence, It Is Better To Fight.

It Is Hardly A Moral Act To Encourage Others Patiently To Accept Injustice Which He Himself Does Not Endure.

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.

May I Stress The Need For Courageous, Intelligent, And Dedicated Leadership... Leaders Of Sound Integrity. Leaders Not In Love With Publicity, But In Love With Justice. Leaders Not In Love With Money, But In Love With Humanity. Leaders Who Can Subject Their Particular Egos To The Greatness Of The Cause.

The Time Has Come For An All-out War Against Poverty. The Rich Nations Must Use Their Vast Resources Of Wealth To Develop The Underdeveloped, School The Unschooled, And Feed The Unfed. Ultimately A Great Nation Is A Compassionate Nation. No Individual Or Nation Can Be Great If It Does Not Have A Concern For "the Least Of These".

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.

It Will Be One Of The Tragedies Of Christian History If Future Historians Record That At The Height Of The Twentieth Century The Church Was One Of The Greatest Bulwarks Of White Supremacy.

I Have A Dream That 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 The Content Of Their Character.

Unity Has Never Meant Uniformity.

The Labor Movement Was The Principal Force That Transformed Misery And Despair Into Hope And Progress.

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.

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.

Five Score Years Ago, A Great American, In Whose Symbolic Shadow We Stand Today Signed The Emancipation Proclamation. This Momentous Decree Came As A Great Beacon Light Of Hope To Millions Of Negro Slaves Who Had Been Seared In The Flames Of Withering Injustice. It Came As A Joyous Daybreak To End The Long Night Of Their Captivity. But One Hundred Years Later, We Must Face The Tragic Fact That The Negro Is Still Not Free.

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.

I Think A Revolution Can Survive Without Single Centralized Leadership.

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?

It Is Not Only Poverty That Torments The Negro; It Is The Fact Of Poverty Amid Plenty. It Is A Misery Generated By The Gulf Between The Affluence He Sees In The Mass Media And The Deprivation He Experiences In His Everyday Life.

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

If Humanity Is To Progress, Gandhi Is Inescapable.

Returning Violence For Violence Multiplies Violence, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars.

Your Self-sacrificin G Devotion To Your Purpose In Life And Your Unwavering Faith Will Carry You Through Times Of Difficulty.

Unwavering Faith

There May Be A Conflict Between Softminded Religionists And Toughminded Scientists, But Not Between Science And Religion.

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

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

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

Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think

Your Truth Will Increase As You Know Listen To The Truth Of Others

When People Criticize Zionists, They Mean Jews. You Are Talking Anti-semitism.

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 You Want To Be Important-wonderful. If You Want To Be Recognized-wonderful. If You Want To Be Great-wonderful. But Recognize That He Who Is Greatest Among You Shall Be Your Servant. That's A New Definition Of Greatness.

The Church Must Be The Critic And Guide Of The State, And Never Its Tool.

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

Peace Is Not Simply The Absence Of Conflict, But The Existence Of Justice For All People.

Justice For All

[nonviolence] Seeks To Secure Moral Ends Through Moral Means.

Pity May Represent Little More Than The Impersonal Concern Which Prompts The Mailing Of A Check, But True Sympathy Is The Personal Concern Which Demands The Giving Of One's Soul.

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 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.

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.

The Profit Motive, When It Is The Sole Basis Of An Economic System, Encourages A Cutthroat Competition And Selfish Ambition That Inspires Men To Be More Concerned About Making A Living Than Making A Life.

History Will Have To Record That The Greatest Tragedy Of This Period Of Social Transition Was Not The Strident Clamor Of The Bad People, But The Appalling Silence Of The Good People.

Bad Relationship

This Business Of Burning Human Beings With Napalm, Of Filling Our Nation's Homes With Orphans And Widows, Of Injecting Poisonous Drugs Of Hate Into Veins Of Peoples Normally Humane, Of Sending Men Home From Dark And Bloody Battlefields Physically Handicapped And Psychologically Deranged, Cannot Be Reconciled With Wisdom, Justice And Love.

I Also Came To See That Liberalism's Superficial Optimism Concerning Human Nature Caused It To Overlook The Fact That Reason Is Darkened By Sin. The More I Thought About Human Nature The More I Saw How Our Tragic Inclination For Sin Causes Us To Use Our Minds To Rationalize Our Actions. Liberalism Failed To See That Reason By Itself Is Little More Than An Instrument To Justify Man's Defensive Ways Of Thinking. Reason, Devoid Of The Purifying Power Of Faith, Can Never Free Itself From Distortions And Rationalizations.

I Just Want To Do God's Will. And He's Allowed Me To Go To The Mountain. And I've Looked Over, 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.

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

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

Love Is A Usually Force Able Of Transforming An Rivalry Into Friend.

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars. Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate; Only Love Can Do That.

Within The Best Of Us, There Is Some Evil, And Within The Worst Of Us, There Is Some Good. When We Come To See This, We Take A Different Attitude Toward Individuals.

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

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 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.

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

You Can Have No Influence Over Those For Whom You Have Underlying Contempt.

Nonviolent Communication

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.'

A Man Does Not Measure Its Height In Moments Of Comfort, But In Terms Of Change And Controversy

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

I've Decided To Stick With Love.

We Must Have Our Freedom Now. We Must Have The Right To Vote. We Must Have Equal Protection Of The Law.

Too Often An Institution Serves To Bless The Majority Opinion. Today When Too Many Move To The Rhythmic Beat Of The Status Quo, Whoever Would Be A Christian Must Be A Nonconformist.

I Feel That Segregation Is Totally Unchristian, And That It Is Against Everything The Christian Religion Stands For.

The Words 'bad Timing' Came To Be Ghosts Haunting Our Every Move In Birmingham. Yet People Who Used This Argument Were Ignorant Of The Background Of Our Planning...they Did Not Realize That It Was Ridiculous To Speak Of Timing When The Clock Of History Showed That The Negro Had Already Suffered One Hundred Years Of Delay.

I'm Concerned About A Better World. I'm Concerned About Justice; I'm Concerned About Brotherhood; I'm Concerned About Truth. And When One Is Concerned About That, He Can Never Advocate Violence. For Through Violence You May Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder. Through Violence You May Murder A Liar, But You Can't Establish Truth. Through Violence You May Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate Through Violence. Darkness Cannot Put Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That.

All Progress Is Precarious, And The Solution Of One Problem Brings Us Face To Face With Another Problem.

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

It Is No Longer A Choice Between Violence And Nonviolence In This World; It's Nonviolence Or Nonexistence. That Is Where We Are Today.

Call It Democracy, Or Call It Democratic Socialism, But There Must Be A Better Distribution Of Wealth Within This Country For All God's Children.

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

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

Every Crisis Has Both Its Dangers And Its Opportunities. Each Can Spell Either Salvation Or Doom.

Even In The Inevitable Moments When All Seems Hopeless, Men Know That Without Hope They Cannot Really Live, And In Agonizing Desperation They Cry For The Bread Of Hope.

Millions Of Citizens Are Deeply Disturbed That The Military-industrial Complex Too Often Shapes National Policy, But They Do Not Want To Be Considered Unpatriotic.

I'm Grateful To God That, Through The Negro Church, The Dimension Of Nonviolence Entered Our Struggle.

The Ultimate Measure Of A Man Is Not Where He Stands In Moments Of Comfort And Convenience, But Where He Stands At Times Of Challenge And Controversy. Nothing Worthwhile Is Easy. Your Ability To Overcome Unfavorable Situations Will Provide You With Time To Demonstrate Your True Strength And Determination For Success. Always Set Your Standards High, Your Greatest Achievements Lie Within The Infinite Feats You Achieve In Your Life.

Our Scientific Power Has Outrun Our Spiritual Power. We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men. Our Hope For Creative Living Lies In Our Ability To Reestablish The Spiritual Needs Of Our Lives In Personal Character And Social Justice. Without This Spiritual And Moral Reawakening We Shall Destroy Ourselves In The Misuse Of Our Own Instruments.

Whatever Affects One Directly, Affects All Indirectly. I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are What You Ought To Be. This Is The Interrelated Structure Of Reality.

Love Is The Supreme Unifying Principle Of Life.

My Place Is In The Sunlight Of Opportunity.

Hate Destroys The Very Structure Of The Personality Of The Hater.

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.

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

Injustice And Corruption Will Never Be Transformed By Keeping Them Hidden, But Only By Bringing Them Out Into The Light And Confronting Them With The Power Of Love.

Certainly I'm Not Saying That You Sit Down And Patiently Accept Injustice. I'm Talking About A Very Strong Force, Where You Stand Up With All Your Might Against An Evil System, And You Are Not A Coward.

History Is A Great Teacher. Now Everyone Knows That The Labor Movement Did Not Diminish The Strength Of The Nation But Enlarged It. By Raising The Living Standards Of Millions, Labor Miraculously Created A Market For Industry And Lifted The Whole Nation To Undreamed Of Levels Of Production. Those Who Attack Labor Forget These Simple Truths, But History Remembers Them.

Labour Movement

One Of The Greatest Casualties Of The War In Vietnam Is The Great Society... Shot Down On The Battlefield Of Vietnam.

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.

Let Us Be Those Creative Dissenters Who Will Call Our Beloved Nation To A Higher Destiny. To A New Plateau Of Compassion, To A More Noble Expression Of Humanness.

I Cannot Make Myself Believe That God Wanted Me To Hate. I'm Tired Of Violence, I've Seen Too Much Of It. I've Seen Such Hate On The Faces Of Too Many Sheriffs In The South. And I'm Not Going To Let My Oppressor Dictate To Me What Method I Must Use. Our Oppressors Have Used Violence. Our Oppressors Have Used Hatred. Our Oppressors Have Used Rifles And Guns. I'm Not Going To Stoop Down To Their Level. I Want To Rise To A Higher Level. We Have A Power That Can't Be Found In Molotov Cocktails.

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.

Capitalism Started Out With A Noble And High Motive, But Like Most Human Systems It Fell Victim To The Very Thing It Was Revolting Against.

Human Salvation Lies In The Hands Of The Creatively Maladjusted.

Our Generation Will Not Have Regretted Both Perverse Crimes, And The Eerie Silence Of The Kind

We Must Forever Conduct Our Struggle On The High Plane Of Dignity And Discipline. We Must Not Allow Our Creative Protest To Degenerate Into Physical Violence.

Police Violence

In Spite Of The Fact That The Law Of Revenge Solves No Social Problems, Men Continue To Follow Its Disastrous Leading. History Is Cluttered With The Wreckage Of Nations And Individuals That Pursued This Self-defeating Path.

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

Without Denying The Value Of Scientific Endeavor, There Is A Striking Absurdity In Committing Billions To Reach The Moon Where No People Live, While Only A Fraction Of That Amount Is Appropriated To Service The Densely Populated Slums.

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.

The Failures Of The Past Must Not Be An Excuse For The Inaction Of The Present And The Future.

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.

The Great Military Leaders Of The Past Have Gone, Their Empires Have Crumbled And Burned To Ashes. But The Empire Of Jesus, Built Solidly And Majestically On The Foundation Of Love, Is Still Growing.

We Cannot Be Truly Christian People So Long As We Flaunt The Central Teachings Of Jesus: Brotherly Love And The Golden Rule.

A Second Way That Oppressed People Sometimes Deal With Oppression Is To Resort To Physical Violence And Corroding Hatred.

What Is More Tragic Than To See A Person Who Has Risen To The Disciplined Heights Of Tough-mindedness But Has At The Same Time Sunk To The Passionless Depths Of Hard-heartedness?

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

We Were Taking The Black Young Men Who Had Been Crippled By Our Society And Sending Them Eight Thousand Miles Away To Guarantee Liberties In Southeast Asia Which They Had Not Found In Southwest Georgia And East Harlem.

The Greatness Of Our God Lies In The Fact That [he] Is Both Tough Minded And Tender Hearted.

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

Philanthropy Is Commendable, But It Must Not Cause The Philanthropist To Overlook The Circumstances Of Economic Injustice Which Make Philanthropy Necessary.

The Great Issue Of Life Is To Harness The Drum Major Instinct.

The Words 'i Will Forgive You, But I'll Never Forget What You've Done' Never Explain The Real Nature Of Forgiveness.

My Friends, I Must Say To You That We Have Not Made A Single Gain In Civil Rights Without Determined Legal And Nonviolent Pressure.

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.

Will We March Only To The Music Of Time, Or Will We, Risking Criticism And Abuse, March To The Soul-saving Music Of Eternity?

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

A True Revolution Of Values Will Soon Cause Us To Question The Fairness And Justice Of Many Of Our Present Policies.

Breaking Silence

Music Is The Best Consolation For A Despaired Man

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy... In Fact, Violence Merely Increases Hate. So It Goes. Returning Violence For Violence Multiplies Violence, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night Already Devoid Of Stars.

Is Your Heart Right? If Your Heart Isn't Right, Fix It Up Today.

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

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

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

I Want To Suggest Some Of The Things That Should Begin Your Life's Blueprint. Number One...should Be A Deep Belief In Your Own Dignity. Your Worth And Your Own Somebodiness... Always Feel That You Count. Always Feel That You Have Worth, And Always Feel That Your Life Has Ultimate Significance.

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

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

Today We Know With Certainty That Segregation Is Dead. The Only Question Remaining Is How Costly Will Be The Funeral.

I Would Not Hesitate To Say That It Is Unfortunate That So-called Demonstrations Are Taking Place In Birmingham At This Time, But I Would Say In More Emphatic Terms That It Is Even More Unfortunate That The White Power Structure Of This City Left The Negro Community With No Other Alternative.

As Long As The Mind Is Enslaved, The Body Can Never Be Free. Psychological Freedom, A Firm Sense Of Self-esteem, Is The Most Powerful Weapon Against The Long Night Of Physical Slavery.

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.

Education Without Morals Is Like A Ship Without A Compass, Merely Wandering Nowhere.

In Our Glorious Fight For Civil Rights, We Must Guard Against Being Fooled By False Slogans, Such As 'right-to-work.' It Provides No 'rights' And No 'works.' Its Purpose Is To Destroy Labor Unions And The Freedom Of Collective Bargaining…. We Demand This Fraud Be Stopped.

I Look Forward Confidently To The Day When All Who Work For A Living Will Be One With No Thought To Their Separateness As Negroes, Jews, Italians Or Any Other Distinctions. This Will Be The Day When We Bring Into Full Realization The American Dream -- A Dream Yet Unfulfilled.

I Am Not Unmindful That Some Of You Have Come Here Out Of Great Trials And Tribulations. Some Of You Have Come Fresh From Narrow Cells. Some Of You Have Come From Areas Where Your Quest For Freedom Left You Battered By The Storms Of Persecution And Staggered By The Winds Of Police Brutality. You Have Been The Veterans Of Creative Suffering. Continue To Work With The Faith That Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive.

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

Never Succumb To The Temptation Of Bitterness.

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!

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.

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

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

It's Not How Long A Man Lives, But How Well He Uses The Time Allotted Him.

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.

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.

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.

Somebody Told A Lie One Day. They Couched It In Language. They Made Everything Black Ugly And Evil. Look In Your Dictionaries And See The Synonyms Of The Word Black. It's Always Something Degrading And Low And Sinister. Look At The Word White, It's Always Something Pure, High And Clean.

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

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

Oppressed People Cannot Remain Oppressed Forever. The Yearning For Freedom Eventually Manifests Itself.

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.

Brutality Was Imprisoned In A Lumious Glare Revealing The Naked Truth To The Whole World

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.

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

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.

We Cannot Walk Alone. And As We Walk, We Must Make The Pledge That We Shall Always March Ahead. We Cannot Turn Back.

I Have A Dream Speech

We Who In Engage In Nonviolent Direct Action Are Not The Creators Of Tension. We Merely Bring To The Surface The Hidden Tension That Is Already Alive.

The Most Dangerous Type Of Atheism Is Not Theoretical Atheism, But Practical Atheism -that's The Most Dangerous Type. And The World, Even The Church, Is Filled Up With People Who Pay Lip Service To God And Not Life Service. And There Is Always A Danger That We Will Make It Appear Externally That We Believe In God When Internally We Don't. We Say With Our Mouths That We Believe In Him, But We Live With Our Lives Like He Never Existed. That Is The Ever-present Danger Confronting Religion. That's A Dangerous Type Of Atheism.

Slavery In America Was Perpetuated Not Merely By Human Badness But Also By Human Blindness. ... Men Convinced Themselves That A System That Was So Economically Profitable Must Be Morally Justifiable. ... Science Was Commandeered To Prove The Biological Inferiority Of The Negro. Even Philosophical Logic Was Manipulated [exemplified By] An Aristotlian Syllogism: All Men Are Made In The Image Of God; God, As Everyone Knows, Is Not A Negro; Therefore, The Negro Is Not A Man.

Why Should There Be Hunger And Deprivation In Any Land, In Any City, At Any Table, When Man Has The Resources And The Scientific Know-how To Provide All Mankind With The Basic Necessities Of Life? There Is No Deficit In Human Resources. The Deficit Is In Human Will.

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

There Is Something In This Universe That Justifies The Biblical Writer In Saying, "you Shall Reap What You Sow." This Is A Law-abiding Universe. This Is A Moral Universe. It Hinges On Moral Foundations. If We Are To Make Of This A Better World, We've Got To Go Back And Rediscover That Precious Value That We've Left Behind.

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

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.

Like Anybody, I Would Like To Have A Long Life. Longevity Has Its Place. But I'm Not Concerned About That Now. I Just Want To Do God's Will.

We Cannot Walk Alone.

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

Science Investigates Religion Interprets. Science Gives Man Knowledge Which Is Power Religion Gives Man Wisdom Which Is Control.

The Nation Is Sick; Trouble Is In The Land, Confusion All Around...but I Know, Somehow, That Only When It Is Dark Enough Can You See The Stars. And I See God Working In This Period Of The Twentieth Century. Something Is Happening In Our World. The Masses Of People Are Rising Up. And Wherever They Are Assembled Today, Whether They Are In Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; Or Memphis, Tennessee, The Cry Is Always The Same: 'we Want To Be Free.'

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

In The Event Of A Violent Revolution, We Would Be Sorely Outnumbered. And When It Was All Over, The Negro Would Face The Same Unchanged Conditions, The Same Squalor And Deprivation-the Only Difference Being That His Bitterness Would Be Even More Intense, His Disenchantment Even More Abject. Thus, In Purely Practical As Well As Moral Terms, The American Negro Has No Rational Alternative To Nonviolence.

Liberalism Provided Me With An Intellectual Satisfaction That I Never Found In Fundamentalism. I Became So Enamored Of The Insights Of Liberalism That I Almost Fell Into The Trap Of Accepting Uncritically Everything It Encompassed.

Nonviolence Is The Answer To The Crucial Political Moral Questions Of Our Time.

Foundation Of Love

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.

If You've Got Nothing Worth Dying For, You've Got Nothing Worth Living For.

Actually, We Who Engage In Nonviolent Direct Action Are Not The Creators Of Tension. We Merely Bring To The Surface The Hidden Tension That Is Already Alive. We Bring It Out In The Open, Where It Can Be Seen And Dealt With. Like A Boil That Can Never Be Cured So Long As It Is Covered Up But Must Be Opened With An Its Ugliness To The Natural Medicines Of Air And Light, Injustice Must Be Exposed, With All The Tension Its Exposure Creates, To The Light Of Human Conscience And The Air Of National Opinion Before It Can Be Cured.

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?

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.

We Are All Tied Together In A Single Garment Of Destiny . . . I Can Never Be What I Ought To Be Until You Are Allowed To Be What You Ought To Be.

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.

If Our Economic System Is To Survive, There Has To Be A Better Distribution Of Wealth ... We Can't Have A System Where Some People Live In Superfluous, Inordinate Wealth, While Others Live In Abject Deadening Poverty.

Distribution Of Wealth

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate.

Loving Your Enemies

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

There May Have Been A Time When War Served As A Negative Good By Preventing The Spread And Growth Of An Evil Force, But The Destructive Power Of Modern Weapons Eliminates Even The Possibility That War May Serve As A Negative Good.

We All Have The Drum Major Instinct. We All Want To Be Important, To Surpass Others, To Achieve Distinction, To Lead The Parade.

The More There Are Riots, The More Repressive Actin Will Take Place, And The More We Face The Danger Of A Right-wing Takeover And Eventually A Fascist Society.

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

One Day The Absurdity Of The Almost Universal Human Belief In The Slavery Of Other Animals Will Be Palpable. We Shall Then Have Discovered Our Souls And Become Worthier Of Sharing This Planet With Them.

Ordinarily, A Person Leaving A Courtroom With A Conviction Behind Him Would Wear A Somber Face. But I Left With A Smile. I Knew That I Was A Convicted Criminal, But I Was Proud Of My Crime.

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

I Have Condemned Any Organizer Of War, Regardless Of His Rank Or Nationality.

We Must Follow Nonviolence And Love.

True Compassion Is More Than Flinging A Coin To A Beggar. It Comes To See That A System That Produces Beggars Needs To Be Repaved. We Are Called To Be The Good Samaritan, But After You Lift So Many People Out Of The Ditch You Start To Ask, Maybe The Whole Road To Jericho Needs To Be Repaved.

We As Christians Have A Mandate To Be Nonconformists.

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.

We Must Build Dikes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear.

Whenever You Are Engaged In Work That Serves Humanity And Is For The Building Of Humanity, It Has Dignity And It Has Worth.

We Must Learn To Live Together As Brothers Or Perish Together As Fools.

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