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My Study Of Gandhi Convinced Me That True Pacifism Is Not Nonresistance To Evil, But Nonviolent Resistance To Evil. Between The Two Positions, There Is A World Of Difference. Gandhi Resisted Evil With As Much Vigor And Power As The Violent Resister, But True Pacifism Is Not Unrealistic Submission To Evil Power. It Is Rather A Courageous Confrontation Of Evil By The Power Of Love. . . .

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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My Study Of Gandhi

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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My Study Of Gandhi Convinced Me That True Pacifism Is Not Nonresistance To Evil, But Nonviolent Resistance To Evil. Between The Two Positions, There Is A World Of Difference. Gandhi Resisted Evil With As Much Vigor And Power As The Violent Resister, But True Pacifism Is Not Unrealistic Submission To Evil Power. It Is Rather A Courageous Confrontation Of Evil By The Power Of Love. . . .

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I Have Decided To Love. If You Are Seeking The Highest Good, I Think You Can Find It Through Love. God Is Love.

Good And Just Society Is Neither The Thesis Of Capitalism Nor The Antithesis Of Communism, But A Socially Conscious Democracy Which Reconciles The Truths Of Individualism And Collectivism.

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.

Love Is The Most Durable Power In The World. This Creative Force Is The Most Potent Instrument Available In Mankind's Quest For Peace And Security.

The Limitation Of Riots, Moral Questions Aside, Is That They Cannot Win And Their Participants Know It. Hence, Rioting Is Not Revolutionary But Reactionary Because It Invites Defeat. It Involves An Emotional Catharsis, But It Must Be Followed By A Sense Of Futility.

Rioting Is Not Revolutionary.

Every Word And Deed Must Contribute To An Understanding With The Enemy And Release Those Vast Reservoirs Of Goodwill Which Have Been Blocked By Impenetrable Walls Of Hate.

Freedom Is Never Voluntarily Given By The Oppressor; It Must Be Demanded By The Oppressed.

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.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing.

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

Whatever My Doubts, However Heavy The Burden, I Feel That I Must Accept The Task Of Helping To Make This Nation And This World A Better Place To Live In - For All Men, Black And White Alike.

Black And White

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

Every Man Of Humane Convictions Must Decide On The Protest That Best Suits His Convictions, But We Must All Protest.

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.

In A Sense We've Come To Our Nation's Capital To Cash A Check. 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. This Note Was A Promise That All Men - Yes, Black Men As Well As White Men - Would Be Guaranteed The Unalienable Rights Of Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness... America Has Given The Negro People A Bad Check, A Check Which Has Come Back Marked 'insufficient Funds.'

Pursuit Of Happiness

At The Center Of Non-violence Stands The Principle Of Love.

Thought Provoking

It Seems To Me That Education Has A Two-fold Function To Perform In The Life Of Man And In Society: The One Is Utility And The Other Is Culture. Education Must Enable A Man To Become More Efficient, To Achieve With Increasing Facility The Ligitimate Goals Of His Life.

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

Justice For All

And When This Happens, When We Allow Freedom Ring, When We Let It Ring From Every Village And Every Hamlet, From Every State And Every City, We Will Be Able To Speed Up That Day When All Of God's Children, Black Men And White Men, Jews And Gentiles, Protestants And Catholics, Will Be Able To Join Hands And Sing In The Words Of The Old Negro Spiritual: Free At Last! Free At Last! Thank God Almighty, We Are Free At Last!

Power Properly Understood Is Nothing But The Ability To Achieve Purpose. It Is The Strength Required To Bring About Social, Political And Economic Change.

Let Us Not Seek To Satisfy Our Thirst For Freedom By Drinking From The Cup Of Bitterness And Hatred.

For You All Think God Is One Who Rewards Good And Punishes Evil, But I Say To You That God Is One Who Loves You And Has Compassion For Everyone. You Just Have To Pray To Him And Believe In Him. He Will Always Be Your Guiding Light.

The Job Of The School Is To Teach So Well That Family Background Is No Longer An Issue.

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

Let Us Be Practical And Ask The Question: How Do We Love Our Enemies?

Love Your Enemies

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.

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

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

The Negro Needs The White Man To Free Him From His Fears. The White Man Needs The Negro To Free Him From His Guilt.

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

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

Be Sure To Play "blessed Lord" Tonight - Play It Real Pretty.

A Right Delayed Is A Right Denied.

Nonviolence Is The Answer To The Crucial Political And Moral Questions Of Our Time: The Need For Man To Overcome Oppression And Violence Without Resorting To Oppression And Violence. Man Must Evolve For All Human Conflict A Method Which Rejects Revenge, Aggression And Retaliation. The Foundation Of Such A Method Is Love.

Our Only Hope Today Lies In Our Ability To Recapture The Revolutionary Spirit And Go Out Into A Sometimes Hostile World Declaring Eternal Hostility To Poverty, Racism, And Militarism... We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, That Tomorrow Is Today. We Are Confronted With The Fierce Urgency Of Now.

The 'tide In The Affairs Of Men' Does Not Remain At The Flood; It Ebbs. We May Cry Out Desperately For Time To Pause In Her Passage, But Time Is Deaf To Every Plea And Rushes On. Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residue Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words: 'too Late...'

I Have A Dream That One Day Little Black Boys And Girls Will Be Holding Hands With Little White Boys And Girls.

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

I Believe That Unarmed Truth And Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word In Reality. This Is Why Right, Temporarily Defeated, Is Stronger Than Evil Triumphant.

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

Like An Unchecked Cancer, Hate Corrodes The Personality And Eats Away Its Vital Unity. Hate Destroys A Man's Sense Of Values And His Objectivity. It Causes Him To Describe The Beautiful As Ugly And The Ugly As Beautiful, And To Confuse The True With The False And The False With The True.

Now Let Us Begin. Now Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To The Long And Bitter - But Beautiful - Struggle For A New World.

True Sympathy Is The Personal Concern Which Demands The Giving Of One's Soul.

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

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.

Law And Order Exist For The Purpose Of Establishing Justice And When They Fail In This Purpose They Become The Dangerously Structured Dams That Block The Flow Of Social Progress.

I Want To Be The White Man's Brother, Not His Brother-in-law.

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.

A Strong Man Must Be Militant As Well As Moderate. He Must Be A Realist As Well As An Idealist.

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

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.

The Curse Of Poverty Has No Justification In Our Age. It Is Socially As Cruel And Blind As The Practice Of Cannibalism At The Dawn Of Civilization, When Men Ate Each Other Because They Had Not Yet Learned To Take Food From The Soil Or To Consume The Abundant Animal Life Around Them. The Time Has Come For Us To Civilize Ourselves By The Total, Direct And Immediate Abolition Of Poverty.

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.

The First Question Which The Priest And The Levite Asked Was: 'if I Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Me?' But... The Good Samaritan Reversed The Question: 'if I Do Not Stop To Help This Man, What Will Happen To Him?'

Don't Ever Let Anyone Pull You So Low As To Hate Them. We Must Use The Weapon Of Love. We Must Have The Compassion And Understanding For Those Who Hate Us. We Must Realize So Many People Are Taught To Hate Us That They Are Not Totally Responsible For Their Hate. But We Stand In Life At Midnight; We Are Always On The Threshold Of A New Dawn.

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?

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

Change Does Not Roll In On The Wheels Of Inevitability, But Comes Through Continuous Struggle.

We Will Never Have Peace In The World Until Men Everywhere Recognize That Ends Are Not Cut Off From Means, Because The Means Represent The Ideal In The Making, And The End In Process, And Ultimately You Can't Reach Good Ends Through Evil Means, Because The Means Represent The Seed And The End Represents The Tree.

The Sooner Our Society Admits That The Negro Revolution Is No Momentary Outburst Soon To Subside Into Placid Passivity, The Easier The Future Will Be For Us All.

The Real Problem Is That Through Our Scientific Genius We’ve Made Of The World A Neighborhood, But Through Our Moral And Spiritual Genius We’ve Failed To Make Of It A Brotherhood.

When We Ask Negroes To Abide By The Law, Let Us Also Declare That The White Man Does Not Abide By Law In The Ghettos. Day In And Day Out He Violates Welfare Laws To Deprive The Poor Of Their Meager Allotments; He Flagrantly Violates Building Codes And Regulations; His Police Make A Mockery Of Law; He Violates Laws On Equal Employment And Education And The Provisions Of Civil Services. The Slums Are The Handiwork Of A Vicious System Of The White Society; Negroes Live In Them, But They Do Not Make Them, Any More Than A Prisoner Makes A Prison.

Oh, The Worst Of All Tragedies Is Not To Die Young, But To Live Until I Am Seventy Five And Yet Not Ever Truly To Have Lived.

He Should Sweep Streets So Well That All The Host Of Heaven And Earth Will Pause To Say, 'here Lives A Great Street-sweeper Who Did His Job Well'

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

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

Jesus Is Not An Impractical Idealist; He Is The Practical Realist.

Love Is Understanding, Redemptive Goodwill For All Men, So That You Love Everybody.

In Our Struggle Against Racial Segregation In Montgomery, Alabama, I Came To See At A Very Early Stage That A Synthesis Of Gandhi's Method Of Nonviolence And The Christian Ethic Of Love Is The Best Weapon Available To Negroes For This Struggle For Freedom And Human Dignity. It May Well Be That The Gandhian Approach Will Bring About A Solution To The Race Problem In America. His Spirit Is A Continual Reminder To Oppressed People That It Is Possible To Resist Evil And Yet Not Resort To Violence.

It's Very Easy For One Talking About Violence And Hatred For The White Man To Appeal To [negro From Ghetto]. I Have Never Thought Of This, But I Think This Is Quite True, That If, Even If You Talk To Them About Nonviolence From A Tactical Point Of View, They Can't Quite See It Because They Don't Even Know They're Outnumbered.

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.

I've Always Tried To Be What I Call Militantly Nonviolent. I Don't Believe That Anyone Could Seriously Accuse Me Of Not Being Totally Committed To The Breakdown Of Segregation.

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

It May Be True That The Law Cannot Make A Man Love Me, But It Can Keep Him From Lynching Me, And I Think That's Pretty Important.

[i] Know That Love Is Ultimately The Only Answer To Mankind's Problems.

The Modern Choice Is Between Non-violence Or Non-existence.

Religion Operates Not Only On The Vertical Plane But Also On The Horizontal. It Seeks Not Only To Integrate Men With God But To Integrate Men With Men And Each Man With Himself.

Too Unconcerned To Love And Too Passionless To Hate, Too Detached To Be Selfish And Too Lifeless To Be Unselfish, Too Indifferent To Experience Joy And Too Cold To Express Sorrow, They Are Neither Dead Nor Alive; They Merely Exist.

Now A Lot Of Us Are Preachers, And All Of Us Have Our Moral Convictions And Concerns, And So Often Have Problems With Power. There Is Nothing Wrong With Power If Power Is Used Correctly.

Agape Is Something Of The Understanding, Creative, Redemptive Goodwill For All Men. It Is A Love That Seeks Nothing In Return. It Is An Overflowing Love; It's What Theologians Would Call The Love Of God Working In The Lives Of Men. And When You Rise To Love On This Level, You Begin To Love Men, Not Because They Are Likeable, But Because God Loves Them.

We Must Pursue Peaceful End Through Peaceful Means.

We Must Develop A Federal Program Of Public Works, Retraining, And Jobs For All - So That None, White Or Black, Will Have Cause To Feel Threatened . . . There Is Nothing Except Shortsightedness To Prevent Us From Guaranteeing An Annual Minimum And Livable Income For Every American Family.

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.

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

Something Should Remind Us Once More That The Great Things In This Universe Are Things That We Never See.

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.

We Have Waited For More Than Three Hundred And Forty Years For Our Constitutional And God-given Rights.

What Are You Doing For Others?

You Have To Keep Moving Forward

Keep Moving Forward

I Was Convinced That Worship At Its Best Is A Social Experience With People Of All Levels Of Life Coming Together To Realize Their Oneness And Unity Under God. Whenever The Church, Consciously Or Unconsciously, Caters To One Class It Loses The Spiritual Force Of The "whosoever Will, Let Him Come, Doctrine And Is In Danger Of Becoming A Little More Than A Social Club With A Thin Veneer Of Religiosity."

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

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.

Here Is The True Meaning And Value Of Compassion And Nonviolence, When It Helps Us To See The Enemy's Point Of View, To Hear His Questions, To Know His Assessment Of Ourselves. For From His View We May Indeed See The Basic Weaknesses Of Our Own Condition, And If We Are Mature, We May Learn And Grow And Profit From The Wisdom Of The Brothers Who Are Called The Opposition.

Our Goal Is To Create A Beloved Community," Said Dr. King, "and This Will Require A Qualitative Change In Our Souls As Well As A Quantitative Change In Our Lives.

Beloved Community

The Quality, Not The Longevity, Of One's Life Is What Is Important.

When A Nation Becomes Obsessed With The Guns Of War, It Loses Its Social Perspective.... There Is Something About A War Like This That Makes People Insensitive. It Dulls The Conscience. It Strengthens The Forces Of Reaction, And It Brings Into Being Bitterness And Hatred And Violence.

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

The Whole World Must See That Israel Must Exist And Has The Right To Exist, And Is One Of The Great Outposts Of Democracy 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.

Any Nation Or Government That Deprives An Individual Of Freedom Is In That Moment Committing An Act Of Moral And Spiritual Murder. Any Individual Who Is Not Concerned About His Freedom Commits An Act Of Moral And Spiritual Suicide.

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

I Guess One Of The Great Agonies Of Life Is That We Are Constantly Trying To Finish That Which Is Unfinishable

If You Have Not Discovered Something You Are Willing To Die For, Then You Are Not Fit To Live.

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.

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.

We Must Build Dikes Of Courage To Hold Back The Flood Of Fear. That Old Law About "an Eye For An Eye" Leaves Everybody Blind... The Time Is Always Right To Do The Right Thing. Peace Is Not Merely A Distant Goal That We Seek, But A Means By Which We Arrive At That Goal.

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.

One Day We Will Learn That The Heart Can Never Be Totally Right If The Head Is Totally Wrong. Only Through The Bringing Together Of Head And Heart-intelligence And Goodness-shall Man Rise To A Fulfillment Of His True Nature.

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

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.

Violence Never Brings Permanent Peace. It Solves No Social Problem: It Merely Creates New And More Complicated Ones.

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

In Christ There Is No East Nor West.

Freedom Only Comes Through Persistent Revolt, Through Persistent Agitation, Through Persistently Rising Up Against The System Of Evil.

And So We Shall Have To Do More Than Register And More Than Vote; We Shall Have To Create Leaders Who Embody Virtues We Can Respect, Who Have Moral And Ethical Principles We Can Applaud With Enthusiasm.

Ethical Principles

Darkness Cannot Be Overcome With More Darkness, Only With Light. Violence Cannot Be Overcome With More Violence, Only With Peace.

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

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

I Have A Dream... I Have A Dream Today... And If America Is To Be A Great Nation This Must Become True.

Jazz Speaks For Life. This Is Triumphant Music.

I Have A Dream Today!

World Peace Through Nonviolent Means Is Neither Absurd Nor Unattainable. All Other Methods Have Failed. Thus We Must Begin Anew. Nonviolence Is A Good Starting Point. Those Of Us Who Believe In This Method Can Be Voices Of Reason, Sanity, And Understanding Amid The Voices Of Violence, Hatred, And Emotion. We Can Very Well Set A Mood Of Peace Out Of Which A System Of Peace Can Be Built.

Everything That We See Is A Shadow Cast By That Which We Do Not See.

Whenever Men And Women Straighten Their Backs Up, They Are Going Somewhere, Because A Man Can't Ride Your Back Unless It Is Bent

You Can't Talk About Solving The Economic Problem Of The Negro Without Talking About Billions Of Dollars. You Can't Talk About Ending The Slums Without First Saying Profit Must Be Taken Out Of The Slums. You're Really Tampering And Getting On Dangerous Ground Because You Are Messing With Folk Then. You Are Messing With Captains Of Industry. Now This Means That We Are Treading In Difficult Water, Because It Really Means That We Are Saying That Something Is Wrong With Capitalism.

Hatred Paralyzes Life; Love Releases It.

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

In That Dramatic Scene On Calvary's Hill Three Men Were Crucified.... All Three Were Crucified For The Same Crime-the Crime Of Extremism. Two Were Extremists For Immorality, And Thus Fell Below Their Environment. The Other, Jesus Christ, Was An Extremist For Love, Truth And Goodness, And Thereby Rose Above His Environment. Perhaps The South, The Nation And The World Are In Dire Need Of Creative Extremists.

I Was Not Afraid Of The Words Of The Violent, But Of The Silence Of The Honest.

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

One Day The South Will Know That When These Disinherited Children Of God Sat Down At Lunch Counters, They Were In Reality Standing Up For What Is Best In The American Dream And For The Most Sacred Values In Our Judaeo-christian Heritage, Thereby Bringing Our Nation Back To Those Great Wells Of Democracy Which Were Dug Deep By The Founding Fathers In Their Formulation Of The Constitution And The Declaration Of Independence.

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

I Oppose The War In Vietnam Because I Love America. I Speak Out Against It Not In Anger But With Anxiety And Sorrow In My Heart, And Above All With A Passionate Desire To See Our Beloved Country Stand As A Moral Example Of The World.

Set Yourself Earnestly To Discover What You Are Made To Do, And Then Give Yourself Passionately To The Doing Of It.

I’ve Been To The Mountaintop

I Choose To Identify With The Underprivileged, I Choose To Give My Life For The Hungry, I Choose To Give My Life For Those Who Have Been Left Out Of The Sunlight Of Opportunity . . . This Is The Way I'm Going. If It Means Suffering, I'm Going That Way. If It Means Dying For Them, I'm Going That Way, Because I Heard A Voice Saying Do Something For Others.

Men Often Hate Each Other Because They Fear Each Other; They Fear Each Other Because They Don't Know Each Other; They Don't Know Each Other Because They Can Not Communicate; They Can Not Communicate Because They Are Separated.

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.

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

The Darkness Of Racial Injustice Will Be Dispelled Only By The Light Of Forgiving Love. For More That Three Centuries American Negroes Have Been Frustrated By Day And Bewilderment By Night By Unbearable Injustice, And Burdened With The Ugly Weight Of Discrimination. Forced To Live With These Shameful Conditions, We Are Tempted To Become Bitter And Retaliate With A Corresponding Hate. But If This Happens, The New Order We Seek Will Be Little More Than A Duplicate Of The Old Order. We Must In Strength And Humility Meet Hate With Love.

I Feel That When A White Child Goes To School Only With White Children, Unconsciously That Child Grows Up In Many Instances Devoid Of A World Perspective. There Is An Unconscious Provincialism, And It Can Develop Into An Unconscious Superiority Complex Just As A Negro Develops An Unconscious Inferiority Complex.

The Contemporary Tendency In Our Society Is To Base Our Distribution On Scarcity, Which Has Vanished, And To Compress Our Abundance Into The Overfed Mouths Of The Middle And Upper Classes Until They Gag With Superfluity. If Democracy Is To Have Breadth Of Meaning, It Is Necessary To Adjust This Inequity. It Is Not Only Moral, But It Is Also Intelligent. We Are Wasting And Degrading Human Life By Clinging To Archaic Thinking.

The Ability To Lead A Happy Life Is Made, Not Found

Mind Your Own Business

An Individual Who Breaks A Law That Conscience Tells Him Is Unjust, And Who Willingly Accepts The Penalty Of Imprisonment In Order To Arouse The Conscience Of The Community Over Its Injustice, Is In Reality Expressing The Highest Respect For The Law.

He Who Is Devoid Of The Power To Forgive Is Devoid Of The Power To Love.

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.

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

If You Haven't Found Something Worth Dying For, You're Not Fit To Live.

I Refuse To Accept The View . . . That The Bright Daybreak Of Peace And Brotherhood Can Never Become A Reality.

Unconditional Love

Returning Hate For Hate Multiplies Hate.

Loving Your Enemies

But We Refuse To Believe That The Bank Of Justice Is Bankrupt. We Refuse To Believe That There Are Insufficient Funds In The Great Vaults Of Opportunity Of This Nation.

People Are Often Led To Causes And Often Become Committed To Great Ideas Through Persons Who Personify Those Ideas. They Have To Find The Embodiment Of The Idea In Flesh And Blood In Order To Commit Themselves To It.

To Have Peace In The World, Men & Nations Must Embrace The Nonviolent Assertion That Ends And Means Must Cohere.

We Must Stand Up And Say, "i'm Black And I'm Beautiful," And This Self-affirmation Is The Black Man's Need, Made Compelling By The White Man's Crimes Against Him.

Let's Build Bridges, Not Walls.

I Say To You Today, My Friends, So Even Though We Face The Difficulties Of Today And Tomorrow, I Still Have A Dream.

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

You're As Good As Anybody.

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

Rarely Do We Find Men Who Willingly Engage In Hard, Solid Thinking. There Is An Almost Universal Quest For Easy Answers And Half-baked Solutions. Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think.

It Is Always The Right Time To Do The Right Thing.

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

The Choice Is Not Between Violence And Nonviolence But Between Nonviolence And Nonexistence.

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.

There Is Nothing But A Lack Of Social Vision To Prevent Us From Paying An Adequate Wage To Every American Citizen Whether He Be A Hospital Worker, Laundry Worker, Maid Or Day Laborer

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

As A Teenager I Had Never Been Able To Accept The Fact Of Having To Go To The Back Of A Bus Or Sit In The Segregated Section Of A Train. The First Time I Had Been Seated Behind A Curtain In A Dining Car, I Felt As If The Curtain Had Been Dropped On My Selfhood.

Life Isn't Worth Living Until You Have Found Something Worth Dying For.

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

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.

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

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 Refuse To Believe That The Bank Of Justice Is Bankrupt.

I Have A Dream Speech

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 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.

Voting Is The Foundation Stone For Political Action.

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.

I Always Had A Deep Affection For Malcolm And Felt That He Had A Great Ability To Put His Finger On The Existence And The Root Of The Problem. He Was An Eloquent Spokesman For His Point Of View And No One Can Honestly Doubt That Malcolm Had A Great Concern For The Problems We Face As A Race.

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".

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?

America, You Must Be Born Again!

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

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

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

Normal Fear Protects Us; Abnormal Fear Paralyses Us. Normal Fear Motivates Us To Improve Our Individual And Collective Welfare; Abnormal Fear Constantly Poisons And Distorts Our Inner Lives. Our Problem Is Not To Be Rid Of Fear But, Rather To Harness And Master It.

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

Jesus Recognized That Love Is Greater Than Like.

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.

Occasionally In Life There Are Those Moments Of Unutterable Fulfillment Which Cannot Be Completely Explained By Those Symbols Called Words. Their Meanings Can Only Be Articulated By The Inaudible Language Of The Heart.

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.

School Takes 13 Years, Because That Is How Long It Takes To Break A Child's Spirit.

Capitalism Does Not Permit An Even Flow Of Economic Resources. With This System, A Small Privileged Few Are Rich Beyond Conscience, And Almost All Others Are Doomed To Be Poor At Some Level. That's The Way The System Works. And Since We Know That The System Will Not Change The Rules, We Are Going To Have To Change The System.

We Must See The Great Distinction Between A Reform Movement And A Revolutionary Movement. We Are Called Upon To Raise Certain Basic Questions About The Whole Society . . . . What America Must Be Told Today Is That She Must Be Born Again. The Whole Structure Of American Life Must Be Changed.

All Men Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality.

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.

There Is Something Wrong With Our World, Something Fundamentally And Basically Wrong.

A Religion True To Its Nature Must Also Be Concerned About Man's Social Conditions....a Ny Religion That Professes To Be Concerned With The Souls Of Men And Is Not Concerned With The Slums That Damn Them, The Economic Conditions That Strangle Them, And The Social Conditions That Cripple Them Is A Dry-as-dust Religion.

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W. Edwards Deming

Joseph Wood Krutch

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