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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.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Jazz Speaks For Life.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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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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More From Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

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

The Negro Cannot Win The Respect Of His Oppressor By Acquiescing; He Merely Increases The Oppressor's Arrogance And Contempt.

I Could Never Again Raise My Voice Against The Violence Of The Oppressed, Without Having First Spoken Clearly To The Greatest Purveyor Of Violence In The World Today – My Own Government.

Our Age Is One Of Guided Missiles And Unguided Men.

The Day We See The Truth And Cease To Speak Is The Day We Begin To Die

It All Boils Down To The Fact That We Must Never Allow Ourselves To Become Satisfied With Unattained Goals. We Must Always Maintain A Kind Of Divine Discontent.

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

We Must Concentrate Not Merely On The Negative Expulsion Of War But The Postive Affirmation Of Peace.

We Were Not Unmindful Of The Difficulties Involved. So We Decided To Go Through A Process Of Self-purification.

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.

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.

Everyone Has An Opportunity To Be Great Because Everyone Has An Opportunity To Serve.

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

Mother Dear, One Day I'm Going To Turn This World Upside Down." --from My Brother Martin, By Christine King Farris

It Does Not Matter How Long You Live, But How Well You Do It.

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

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.

Returning Hate, Adding Deeper Darkness To A Night That Is Already Void Of Stars. Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness: Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate: Only Love Can Do That.

Faith Can Give Us Courage To Face The Uncertainties Of The Future.

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

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.

Somebody Must Have Sense Enough To Meet Hate With Love. Somebody Must Have Sense Enough To Meet Physical Force With Soul Force. If We Will But Try This Way, We Will Be Able To Change These Conditions And Yet At The Same Time Win The Hearts And Souls Of Those Who Have Kept These Conditions Alive A Way As Old As The Insights Of Jesus Of Nazareth, As Modern As The Techniques Of Mohandas K. Gandhi. There Is Another Way.

Education Without Social Action Is A One-sided Value Because It Has No True Power Potential.

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

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

I Agree With Dante, That The Hottest Places In Hell Are Reserved For Those Who In A Period Of Moral Crisis Maintain Their Neutrality. There Comes A Time When Silence Becomes Betrayal.

There Are Some Things Concerning Which We Must Always Be Maladjusted If We Are To Be People Of Good Will. We Must Never Adjust Ourselves To Racial Segregation. We Must Never Adjust Ourselves To Religious Bigotry. We Must Never Adjust Ourselves To Economic Conditions That Take Necessities From The Many To Give Luxuries To The Few.

The Richer We Have Become Materially, The Poorer We Become Morally And Spiritually. We Have Learned To Fly In The Air Like Birds And Swim In The Sea Like Fish, But We Have Not Learned The Simple Art Of Living Together As Brothers.

Education Without Social Action Is A One-sided Value Because It Has No True Power Potential. Social Action Without Education Is A Weak Expression Of Pure Energy. Deeds Uninformed By Educated Thought Can Take False Directions. When We Go Into Action And Confront Our Adversaries, We Must Be As Armed With Knowledge As They. Our Policies Should Have The Strength Of Deep Analysis Beneath Them To Be Able To Challenge The Clever Sophistries Of Our Opponents.

Man Must Evolve For All Human Conflict A Method Which Rejects Revenge, Aggression And Retaliation. The Foundation Of Such A Method Is Love.

Nonviolent Direct Action Seeks To Create Such A Crisis And Establish Such Creative Tension That A Community That Has Consistently Refused To Negotiate Is Forced To Confront The Issue.

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.

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

I Have Come To See More And More That One Of The Most Decisive Steps That The Negro Can Take Is That Little Walk To The Voting Booth. That Is An Important Step. We've Got To Gain The Ballot, And Through That Gain, Political Power.

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

All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity And Importance And Should Be Undertaken With Painstaking Excellence.

The Difference Between A Dreamer And A Visionary Is That A Dreamer Has His Eyes Closed And A Visionary Has His Eyes Open

You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace

Hatred And Bitterness Can Never Cure The Disease Of Fear; Only Love Can Do That. Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Harmonies It. Hatred Darkens Life; Love Illuminates It.

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.

A Society Is Always Eager To Cover Misdeeds With A Cloak Of Forgetfulness, But No Society Can Fully Repress An Ugly Past When The Ravages Persist Into The Present. America Owes A Debt Of Justice Which It Has Only Begun To Pay.

All Men Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality.

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.

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.

I Think In This Phase, After The Negro Emerges In And From The Desegregated Society, Then A Great Deal Of Time Must Be Spent In Improving Standards Which Lag Behind To A Large Extent Because Of Segregation,discrimination, And The Legacy Of Slavery.

In A Real Sense Faith Is Total Surrender To God .

Another Way That You Love Your Enemy Is This: When The Opportunity Presents Itself For You To Defeat Your Enemy, That Is The Time Which You Must Not Do It.

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.

In The Struggle For Human Rights And Justice, Negros Will Make A Mistake If They Become Bitter And Indulge In Hate Campaigns.

The Potential Beauty Of Human Life Is Constantly Made Ugly By Man's Ever Recurring Song Of Retaliation. The Oceans Of History Are Made Turbulent By The Ever Rising Tides Of Revenge. Man Has Never Risen Above The Injunction Of The Lex Talionis: "life For Life, Eye For Eye, Tooth For Tooth, Hand For Hand, Foot For Foot." 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.

For Years, I Labored With The Idea Of Reforming The Existing Institutions In The South, A Little Change Here, A Little Change There. Now I Feel Quite Differently. I Think You've Got To Have A Reconstruction Of The Entire System, A Revolution Of Values.

I Don't Think You Can Be In Public Life Without Being Called Bad Names.

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

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

Breaking Silence

Find A Voice In A Whisper.

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.

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.

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

We Must Pursue Peaceful End Through Peaceful Means.

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

The Ultimate Weakness Of Violence Is That It Is A Descending Spiral, Begetting The Very Thing It Seeks To Destroy.

In Christ There Is No East Nor West.

If I Sought To Answer All Of The Criticisms That Cross My Desk, My Secretaries Would Be Engaged In Little Else In The Course Of The Day, And I Would Have No Time For Constructive Work.

How Hard It Is For People To Live Without Someone To Look Down Upon-really To Look Down Upon. It Is Not Just That They Feel Cheated Out Of Someone To Hate. It Is That They Are Compelled To Look More Closely Into Themselves And What They Don't Like About Themselves.

Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That. Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate; Only Love Can Do That.

The Poor In Our Countries Have Been Shut Out Of Our Minds And Driven From The Mainstream Of Our Societies, Because We Have Allowed Them To Become Invisible.

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

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

When Our Days Become Dreary With Low Hovering Clouds Of Despair, And When Our Nights Become Darker Than A Thousand Midnights, Let Us Remember That There Is A Creative Force In This Universe, Working To Pull Down The Gigantic Mountains Of Evil, A Power That Is Able To Make A Way Out Of No Way And Transform Dark Yesterdays Into Bright Tomorrows. Let Us Realize The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Toward Justice.

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

You're As Good As Anybody.

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.

Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity.

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

In The Final Analysis The Weakness Of Black Power Is Its Failure To See That The Black Man Needs The White Man And The White Man Needs The Black Man.

We've Been In The Mountain Of War. We've Been In The Mountain Of Violence. We've Been In The Mountain Of Hatred Long Enough. It Is Necessary To Move On Now, But Only By Moving Out Of This Mountain Can We Move To The Promised Land Of Justice And Brotherhood And The Kingdom Of God. It All Boils Down To The Fact That We Must Never Allow Ourselves To Become Satisfied With Unattained Goals. We Must Always Maintain A Kind Of Divine Discontent.

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

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

I Hate It When People Quote Me On The Internet, Claiming I Said Things That I Never Actually Said.

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.

Be True To What You Said On Paper.

I Have A Dream Today!

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

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

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

So Let Freedom Ring From The Prodigious Hilltops Of New Hampshire.

I Have A Dream Speech

One Who Breaks An Unjust Law Must Do So Openly, Lovingly, And With A Willingness To Accept The Penalty.

Our Eternal Message Of Hope Is That Dawn Will Come.

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

One Of These Days I'm Going To Put My Body Where My Mind Is.

God Has Given Each Normal Person A Capacity To Achieve Some End. True, Some Are Endowed With More Talent Than Others, But God Has Left None Of Us Talentless.

What You Get With Violence Can Be Maintained Only With Violence

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

Freedom Has Always Been An Expensive Thing. History Is Fit Testimony To The Fact That Freedom Is Rarely Gained Without Sacrifice And Self-denial.

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age.

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

In No Sense Do I Advocate Evading Or Defying The Law . . That Would Lead To Anarchy.

The White Poor Also Suffer Deprivation And The Humiliation Of Poverty If Not Of Color. They Are Chained By The Weight Of Discrimination Though Its Badge Of Degradation Does Not Mark Them. It Corrupts Their Lives, Frustrates Their Opportunities And Withers Their Education. In One Sense It Is More Evil For Them Because It Has Confused So Many By Prejudice That They Have Supported Their Own Oppressors.

Music Is The Best Consolation For A Despaired Man

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.

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. The Negro All Over The South Must Come To The Point That He Can Say To His White Brother: "we Will Match Your Capacity To Inflict Suffering With Our Capacity To Endure Suffering. We Will Meet Your Physical Force With Soul Force. We Will Not Hate You, But We Will Not Obey Your Evil Laws. We Will Soon Wear You Down By Pure Capacity To Suffer".

The Body Is God's Temple, But We Are To Worship God, Not The Temple.

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.

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

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

Education Must Enable A Man To Become More Efficient, To Achieve With Increasing Facility The Legitimate Goals Of His Life.

Courage Is An Inner Resolution To Go Forward Despite Obstacles; Cowardice Is Submissive Surrender To Circumstances.

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.

The Intellectual And Moral Satisfaction That I Failed To Gain From The Utilitarianism Of Bentham And Mill, The Revolutionary Methods Of Marx And Lenin, The Social Contract Theory Of Hobbes, The "back To Nature" Optimism Of Rousseau, And The Superman Philosophy Of Nietzsche, I Found In The Nonviolent Resistance Philosophy Of Gandhi. I Came To Feel That This Was The Only Morally And Practically Sound Method Open To Oppressed People In Their Struggle For Freedom.

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

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.

Perhaps...the Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

Political Extremism

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.

I Am Not Interested In Power For Power's Sake, But I'm Interested In Power That Is Moral, That Is Right And That Is Good.

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

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

Breaking Silence

Morality Cannot Be Legislated, But Behavior Can Be Regulated. Judicial Decrees May Not Change The Heart, But They Can Restrain The Heartless.

A Host Of Positive Psychological Changes Inevitably Will Result From Widespread Economic Security. The Dignity Of The Individual Will Flourish When The Decisions Concerning His Life Are In His Own Hands, When He Has The Means To Seek Self-improvement. Personal Conflicts Among Husbands, Wives And Children Will Diminish When The Unjust Measurement Of Human Worth On The Scale Of Dollars Is Eliminated.

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

A Just Law Is A Man-made Code That Squares With The Moral Law, Or The Law Of God. An Unjust Law Is A Code That Is Out Of Harmony With The Moral Law.

Forgiveness Does Not Mean Ignoring What Has Been Done Or Putting A False Label On An Evil Act. It Means, Rather, That The Evil Act No Longer Remains As A Barrier To The Relationship. Forgiveness Is A Catalyst Creating The Atmosphere Necessary For A Fresh Start And A New Beginning.

We Are Not Makers Of History. We Are Made By History.

There Are Two Types Of Laws: There Are Just Laws And There Are Unjust Laws... What Is The Difference Between The Two?...an Unjust Law Is A Man-made Code That Is Out Of Harmony With The Moral Law.

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.

Worship Is As Natural To The Human Family As The Sing Of The Sun Is To The Cosmic Order.

War Is A Poor Chisel To Carve Out Tomorrow.

My Parents Would Always Tell Me That I Should Not Hate The White Man, But That It Was My Duty As A Christian To Love Him.

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.

Hate Destroys The Hater.

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

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

Love Is Creative And Redemptive. Love Builds Up And Unites; Hate Tears Down And Destroys. The Aftermath Of The ‘fight With Fire’ Method...is Bitterness And Chaos, The Aftermath Of The Love Method Is Reconciliation And Creation Of The Beloved Community...yes , Love-which Means Understanding, Creative, Redemptive Goodwill, Even For One’s Enemies-is The Solution

To Accept Injustice Or Segregation Passively Is To Say To The Oppressor That His Actions Are Morally Right.

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

God Is Not Merely Interestd In The Freedom Of Brown Men, Yellow Men, Red Men And Black Men.he Is Interested In The Freedom Of The Whole Human Race.

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

I Have Almost Reached The Regrettable Conclusion That The Negro's Great Stumbling Block In The Stride Toward Freedom Is Not The White Citizens Councilor Or The Ku Klux Klanner But The White Moderate Who Is More Devoted To Order Than To Justice; Who Prefers A Negative Peace Which Is The Absence Of Tension To A Positive Peace Which Is The Presence Of Justice.

It Is A Sad Fact That Because Of Comfort, Complacency, A Morbid Fear Of Communism, And Our Proneness To Adjust To Injustice, The Western Nations That Initiated So Much Of The Revolutionary Spirit Of The Modern World Have Now Become The Arch-antirevolutionaries.

Breaking Silence

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.

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

Ten Cures For Depression Are To Go Out And Do Something For Someone Else And Repeat It Nine Times.

Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

Discrimination Is A Hellhound That Gnaws At Negroes In Every Waking Moment Of Their Lives To Remind Them That The Lie Of Their Inferiority Is Accepted As Truth In The Society Dominating Them.

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?

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

Justice For All

Make Your Way To Death Row And Speak With The Tragic Victims Of Criminality. As They Prepare To Make Their Pathetic Walk To The Electric Chair, Their Hopeless Cry Is That Society Will Not Forgive. Capital Punishment Is Society's Final Assertion That It Will Not Forgive.

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.'

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

Never Before Have I Written So Long A Letter. I'm Afraid It Is Much Too Long To Take Your Precious Time. I Can Assure You That It Would Have Been Much Shorter If I Had Been Writing From A Comfortable Desk, But What Else Can One Do When He Is Alone In A Narrow Jail Cell, Other Than Write Long Letters, Think Long Thoughts, And Pray Long Prayers?

‎it Is A Cruel Injustice To Tell A Bootless Man To Pull Himself Up By His Bootstraps.

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.

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.

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

Three Simple Words Can Describe The Nature Of The Social Revolution That Is Talking Place And What Negroes Really Want. They Are The Words "all," "now," And "here."

Curtailment Of Free Speech Is Rationalized On Grounds That A More Compelling American Tradition Forbids Criticism Of The Government When The Nation Is At War... Nothing Can Be More Destructive Of Our Fundamental Democratic Traditions Than The Vicious Effort To Silence Dissenters.

What Seems So Necessary Today May Not Even Be Desirable Tomorrow.

My Mommy Always Said There Were No Monsters - No Real Ones - But There Are.

We All Can't Be Famous But We Can All Be Great And We Become Great When We Serve Others

Keep Feeling The Need For Being First. But I Want You To Be The First In Love. I Want You To Be The First In Moral Excellence. I Want You To Be The First In Generosity.

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.

Our Children Need Our Presence, Not Our Presents.

The Universe Is On The Side Of Justice

Everybody Can Be Great...because Anybody Can Serve. You Don't Have To Have A College Degree To Serve. You Don't Have To Make Your Subject And Verb Agree To Serve. You Only Need A Heart Full Of Grace. A Soul Generated By Love.

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.

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

Mankind's Survival Is Dependent On Man's Ability To Solve The Problems Of Racial Injustice, Poverty, And War; The Solution Of These Problems Is In Turn Dependent Upon Man's Squaring His Moral Progress With His Scientific Progress, And Learning The Practical Art Of Living In Harmony.

When We Rise In The Morning... At The Table We Drink Coffee Which Is Provided To Us By A South American, Or Tea By A Chinese, Or Cocoa By A West African; Before We Leave For Our Jobs We Are Already Beholden To More Than Half The World.

From The Prodigious Hilltops Of New Hampshire, Let Freedom Ring. From The Mighty Mountains Of New York, Let Freedom Ring. From The Heightening Alleghenies Of Pennsylvania, Let Freedom Ring. But Not Only That: Let Freedom Ring From Every Hill And Molehill Of Mississippi.

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.

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.

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.

To Be Negro In America Is To Hope Against Hope.

We Are Called Upon To Help The Discouraged Beggars In Life's Marketplace. But One Day We Must Come To See That An Edifice Which Produces Beggars Needs Restructuring.

A Right Delayed Is A Right Denied.

Many Men Cry Peace! Peace! But They Refuse To Do The Things That Make For Peace.

It Is Appalling That The Most Segregated Hour Of Christian America Is Eleven O'clock On Sunday Morning.

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

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.

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

We Must Come To See With The Distinguished Jurist Of Yesterday That "justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied."

But Alas! Science Cannot Now Rescue Us, For Even The Scientist Is Lost In The Terrible Midnight Of Our Age. Indeed, Science Gave Us The Very Instruments That Threaten To Bring Universal Suicide.

Love Is Somehow The Key That Unlocks The Door Which Leads To Ultimate Reality.

Had It Not Been For The Ministry Of My Good Friend Dr. Billy Graham, My Work In The Civil Rights Movement Would Not Have Been As Successful As It Has Been.

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.

In Every Age And Every Generation, Men Have Envisioned A Promised Land. Some May Have Envisioned It With The Wrong Ideology, With The Wrong Philosophical Presupposition. But Men In Every Generation Thought In Terms Of Some Promised Land.

While The Question Of Who Killed President Kennedy Is Important, The Question 'what Killed Him' Is More Important.

President Kennedy

I Have The Audacity To Believe That Peoples Everywhere Can Have Three Meals A Day For Their Bodies, Education And Culture For Their Minds, And Dignity, Equality And Freedom For Their Spirits. I Believe That What Self-centered Men Have Torn Down Men Other-centered Can Build Up. I Still Believe That One Day Mankind Will Bow Before The Altars Of God And Be Crowned Triumphant Over War And Bloodshed, And Nonviolent Redemptive Good Will Proclaim The Rule Of The Land.

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.

"i Criticize America Because I Love Her. I Want Her To Stand As A Moral Example To The World."

We Have Guided Missiles And Misguided Men.

[e]very Human Life Is A Reflection Of Divinity, And... Every Act Of Injustice Mars And Defaces The Image Of God In Man.

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

Never Again Can We Afford To Live With The Narrow, Provincial "outside Agitator" Idea. Anyone Who Lives Inside The United States Can Never Be Considered An Outsider.

All Life Is Interrelated. The Agony Of The Poor Impoverishes The Rich; The Betterment Of The Poor Enriches The Rich. We Are Inevitably Our Brother's Keeper Because We Are Our Brother's Brother. Whatever Affects One Directly Affects All Indirectly.

Justice Denied Anywhere Diminishes Justice Everywhere.

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.

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.

The Human Heart Is Like A Ship On A Stormy Sea Driven About By Winds Blowing From All Four Corners Of Heaven.

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

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Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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