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

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Nonviolence Is Not Sterile

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

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Social Transformation

More From Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Feel That Non-violence Is Really The Only Way That We Can Follow Because Violence Is Just So Self-defeating. A Riot Ends Up Creating Many More Problems For The Negro Community Than It Solved. We Can Through Violence Burn Down A Building, But You Can't Establish Justice. You Can Murder A Murderer, But You Can't Murder Murder Through Violence. You Can Murder A Hater, But You Can't Murder Hate. And What We're Trying To Get Rid Of Is Hate, Injustice, And All Of These Other Things That Continue The Long Night Of Man's Inhumanity To Man.

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.

Stand Up For Justice, Stand Up For Truth; And God Will Be At Your Side Forever.

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

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.

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

We Are Now Faced With The Fact, My Friends, 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. Procrastination Is Still The Thief Of Time. Life Often Leaves Us Standing Bare, Naked, And Dejected With A Lost Opportunity. . . . Over The Bleached Bones And Jumbled Residues Of Numerous Civilizations Are Written The Pathetic Words, 'too Late.' ... Now Let Us Begin. Now Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To The Long And Bitter, But Beautiful, Struggle For A New World.

Procrastination

The Contemporary Church Is So Often A Weak, Ineffectual Voice With An Uncertain Sound. It Is So Often The Arch Supporter Of The Status Quo.

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

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

You See, My Friends...you Begin To Ask The Questions, 'who Owns The Oil?' You Begin To Ask The Question, 'who Owns The Iron Ore?' You Begin To Ask The Question, 'why Is It That People Have To Pay Water Bills In A World That Is Two-thirds Water?'

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.

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

Nothing Pains Some People More Than Having To Think

So I'm Happy Tonight. I'm Not Worried About Anything. I'm Not Fearing Any Man. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Coming Of The Lord!

In Any Civilized Society, It Is Every Citizen's Responsibility To Obey Just Laws. But At The Same Time, It Is Every Citizen's Responsibility To Disobey Unjust Laws.

In This Revolution, No Plans Have Been Written For Retreat. Those Who Will Not Get Into Step Will Find That The Parade Has Passed Them By.

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.

What Are You Doing For Others?

War Is The Greatest Plague That Can Afflict Mankind... Any Scourge Is Preferable To It.

Now Is The Time To Lift Our National Policy From The Quicksand Of Racial Injustice To The Solid Rock Of Human Dignity.

If The Church Of Today Does Not Recapture The Sacrificial Spirit Of The Early Church, It Will Lose Its Authentic Ring, Forfeit The Loyalty Of Millions, And Be Dismissed As An Irrelevant Social Club With No Meaning For The Twentieth Century.

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.

Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere. We Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality, Tied In A Single Garment Of Destiny.

My Place Is In The Sunlight Of Opportunity.

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.

[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.

Without Love, There Is No Reason To Know Anyone, For Love Will In The End Connect Us To Our Neighbors, Our Children And Our Hearts.

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

Difficult And Painful As It Is, We Must Walk On In The Days Ahead With An Audacious Faith In The Future.

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.

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 Of The Great Liabilities Of History Is That All Too Many People Fail To Remain Awake Through Great Periods Of Social Change.

Social Activism

We Still Have A Choice Today: Nonviolence Coesistence Or Violent Coannihilation.

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.

Unarmed Love Is The Most Powerful Force In All The World.

I Think A Revolution Can Survive Without Single Centralized Leadership.

I Refuse To Accept The View That Mankind Is So Tragically Bound To The Starless Midnight Of Racism And War That The Bright Daybreak Of Peace And Brotherhood Can Never Become A Reality... I Believe That Unarmed Truth And Unconditional Love Will Have The Final Word.

When I Am Commanded To Love, I Am Commanded To Restore Community, To Resist Injustice, And To Meet The Needs Of My Brothers.

The Group Consisting Of Mother, Father And Child Is The Main Educational Agency Of Mankind.

I Cannot Forget That The Nobel Prize For Peace Was Also A Commission - A Commission To Work Harder Than I Had Ever Worked Before For "the Brotherhood Of Man".

Brotherhood Of Man

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.

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.

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.

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

What Good Does It Do To Sit At The Counter When You Cannot Afford A Hamburger?

Economic Inequality

The Function Of Education Is To Teach One To Think Intensively And To Think Critically. Intelligence Plus Character - That Is The Goal Of True Education.

Don't Let Anybody Take Your Manhood.

Let The Negro March. Let Him Make Pilgrimages To City Hall. Let Him Go On Freedom Rides. And Above All, Make An Effort To Understand Why He Must Do This. For If His Frustration And Despair Are Allowed To Continue Piling Up, Millions Of Negroes Will Seek Solace And Security In Black-nationalist Ideologies. And This, Inevitably, Would Lead To A Frightening Racial Nightmare.

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.

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

Breaking Silence

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

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

This Is The Great New Problem Of Mankind. We Have Inherited A Large House, A Great ‘world House’ In Which We Have To Live Together– Black And White, Easterner And Westerner, Gentile And Jew, Catholic And Protestant, Muslim And Hindu– A Family Unduly Separated In Ideas, Culture And Interest, Who, Because We Can Never Again Live Apart, Must Learn Somehow To Live With Each Other In Peace.

Black And White

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

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

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

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

Through Our Scientific And Technological Genius We've Made Of This World A Neighborhood. And Now Through Our Moral And Ethical Commitment We Must Make Of It A Brotherhood. We Must All Learn To Live Together As Brothers-or We Will All Perish Together As Fools.

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

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

I Would Be The Last To Condemn The Thousands Of Sincere And Dedicated People Outside The Churches Who Have Labored Unselfishly Through Various Humanitarian Movements To Cure The World Of Social Evils, For I Would Rather A Man Be A Committed Humanist Than An Uncommitted Christian.

There Is A More Excellent Way, Of Love And Nonviolent Protest.

I Am Not Afraid Of The Word Tension.

Creative Tension

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.

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

There Is Within Human Nature An Amazing Potential For Goodness.

What You Get With Violence Can Be Maintained Only With Violence

The Law Of "an Eye For An Eye" Will Eventually Leave Everyone Blind.

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.

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

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.

Let Us Say Boldly, That If The Total Slum Violations Of Law By The White Man Over The Years Were Calculated And Compared With The Lawbreaking Of A Few Days Of Riots, The Hardened Criminal Would Be The White Man.

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

Breaking Silence

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.

The Strong Man Holds In A Living Blend Strongly Marked Opposites. The Idealists Are Not Usually Realistic, And The Realists Are Not Usually Idealistic. The Militant Are Not Generally Known To Be Passive, Nor The Passive To Be Militant. Seldom Are The Humble Self-assertive, Or The Self-assertive Humble. But Life At It's Best Is A Creative Synthesis Of Opposites In Fruitful Harmony.

We Must Substitute Courage For Caution.

The Oppressed Must Never Allow The Conscience Of The Oppressor To Slumber. Religion Reminds Every Man That He Is His Brother's Keeper.

Forgiveness Is Not An Occasional Act, It Is A Constant Attitude.

I Am Indebted To My Wife Coretta, Without Whose Love, Sacrifices, And Loyalty Neither Life Nor Work Would Bring Fulfillment. She Has Given Me Words Of Consolation When I Needed Them And A Well-ordered Home Where #christian Love Is A Reality.

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

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.

Everyone Can Be Great, Because Everyone Can Serve.

The Soft-minded Man Always Fears Change. He Feels Security In The Status Quo, And He Has An Almost Morbid Fear Of The New. For Him, The Greatest Pain Is The Pain Of A New Idea.

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.

We Have No Alternative But To Protest. For Many Years We Have Shown An Amazing Patience... But We Come Here Tonight To Be Saved From That Patience That Makes Us Patient With Anything Less Than Freedom And Justice.

All Men Are Caught In An Inescapable Network Of Mutuality.

The Reason I Can't Follow The Old Eye-for-an-eye Philosophy Is That It Ends Up Leaving Everyone Blind.

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

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.

When The Negro Finds The Courage To Be Free, He Faces Dogs And Guns And Clubs And Fire Hoses Totally Unafraid, And The White Men With Those Dogs, Guns, Clubs And Fire Hoses See That The Negro They Have Traditionally Called "boy" Has Become A Man.

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

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal.

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

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

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.

And So Even Though We Face The Difficulties Of Today And Tomorrow, I Still Have A Dream. It Is A Dream Deeply Rooted In The American Dream.

He Who Passively Accepts Evil Is As Much Involved In It As He Who Helps To Perpetrate It. He Who Accepts Evil Without Protesting Against It Is Really Cooperating With It.

Our Nation Was Born In Genocide When It Embraced The Doctrine That The Original American, The Indian, Was An Inferior Race. ... We Are Perhaps The Only Nation Which Tried As A Matter Of National Policy To Wipe Out Its Indigenous Population. Moreover, We Elevated That Tragic Experience Into A Noble Crusade. Indeed, Even Today We Have Not Permitted Ourselves To Reject Or To Feel Remorse For This Shameful Episode.

We've Got Some Difficult Days Ahead. But It Doesn't Matter With Me Now. Because I've Been To The Mountaintop. And I Don't Mind. Like Anybody, I Would Like To Live A Long Life. Longevity Has Its Place. But I'm Not Concerned About That Now. I Just Want To Do God's Will. And He's Allowed Me To Go Up To The Mountaintop. And I've Looked Over. And I've Seen The Promised Land.

There Comes A Time When The Cup Of Endurance Runs Over, And Men Are No Longer Willing To Be Plunged Into The Abyss Of Despair.

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?

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

The Strong Man Is The Man Who Can Stand Up For His Rights And Not Hit Back.

I May Not Be The Man I Want To Be; I May Not Be The Man I Ought To Be; I May Not Be The Man I Could Be; I May Not Be The Man I Truly Can Be; But Praise God, I'm Not The Man I Once Was

There Are Always Those Who Say Legislation Can't Solve The Problem. There Is A Half-truth Involved Here. It Is True That Legislation Cannot Solve The Whole Problem. It Can Solve Some Of The Problem. It May Be True That Morality Can't Be Legislated, But Behavior Can Be Regulated.

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

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.

The Church Must Be Reminded That It Is Not The Master Or The Servant Of The State, But Rather The Conscience Of The State. It Must Be The Guide And The Critic Of The State, And Never Its Tool. If The Church Does Not Recapture Its Prophetic Zeal, It Will Become An Irrelevant Social Club Without Moral Or Spiritual Authority.

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.

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

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

President Kennedy

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

And Before You Finish Eating Breakfast In The Morning, You've Depended On More Than Half Of The World. This Is The Way Our Universe Is Structured, This Is Its Interrelated Quality.

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

Violence Is Anything That Denies Human Integrity, And Leads To Hopelessness And Helplessness.

There Is No Sound More Powerful Than The Marching Feet Of A Determined People.

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

But Though I Was Initially Disappointed At Being Categorized As An Extremist, As I Continued To Think About The Matter I Gradually Gained A Measure Of Satisfaction From The Label. Was Not Jesus An Extremist For Love: “love Your Enemies, Bless Them That Curse You, Do Good To Them That Hate You, And Pray For Them Which Despitefully Use You, And Persecute You.”

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

I Have Decided To Love. If You Are Seeking The Highest Good, I Think You Can Find It Through Love. And The Beautiful Thing Is That We Are Moving Against Wrong When We Do It, Because John Was Right, God Is Love. He Who Hates Does Not Know God, But He Who Has Love Has The Key That Unlocks The Door To The Meaning Of Ultimate Reality.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I Have A Dream! To Be Free At Last! Free At Last! Free At Last. And If A Man Has Nothing To Die For, Then His Life Is Worth Nothing.

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

Not Everybody Can Be Famous But Everybody Can Be Great, Because Greatness Is Determined By Service.

We Know Through Painful Experience That Freedom Is Never Voluntarily Given By The Oppressor; It Must Be Demanded By The Oppressed. Frankly I Have Never Yet Engaged In A Direct Action Movement That Was 'well Timed,' According To The Timetable Of Those Who Have Not Suffered Unduly From The Disease Of Segregation. For Years Now I Have Heard The Word 'wait!' It Rings In The Ear Of Every Negro With A Piercing Familiarity. This 'wait' Has Almost Always Meant 'never.' We Must Come To See With The Distinguished Jurist Of Yesterday That 'justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.'

Painful Experiences

The World In Which We Live Is Geographically One. The Challenge That We Face Today Is To Make It One In Terms Of Brotherhood.

Violence Multiplies Violence.

Power Is The Ability To Achieve Purpose.

I Am Disappointed With America. And There Can Be No Great Disappointment Where There Is Not Great Love. I Am Disappointed With Our Failure To Deal Positively And Forthrightly With The Triple Evils Of Racism, Economic Exploitation, And Militarism. We Are Presently Moving Down A Dead-end Road That Can Lead To National Disaster. America Has Strayed To The Far Country Of Racism And Militarism.

We Must Follow Nonviolence And Love.

Many People In Harlem Never Go Out Of Harlem. I Mean They'd Never Even Been Downtown. And You Can See How This Bitterness Can Accumulate. Here You See People Crowded And Hovered Up In Ghettos And Slums With No Hope.they See No Way Out.

Communism Will Never Be Defeated By Atomic Bombs. Our Greatest Defense Against Communism Is To Take Offensive Action On Behalf Of Justice And Righteousness. We Must Seek To Remove Conditions Of Poverty, Injustice, And Racial Discrimination.

There Is Some Good In The Worst Of Us, And Some Evil In The Best Of Us.

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

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.

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.

In Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow The Radiant Stars Of Love And Brotherhood Will Shine Over Our Great Nation With All Their Scintillating Beauty.

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

Often The Oppressor Goes Along Unaware Of The Evil Involved In His Oppression So Long As The Oppressed Accepts It.

Lukewarm Acceptance Is More Bewildering Than Outright Rejection.

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

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.

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

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.

For Years Now I Have Heard The Word "wait." It Rings In The Ear Of Every Negro With A Piercing Familiarity. This "wait" Has Almost Always Meant "never."

Segregation, As Even The Segregationists Know In Their Hearts, Is Morally Wrong And Sinful. If It Weren't, The White South Would Not Be Haunted As It Is By A Deep Sense Of Guilt For What It Has Done To The Negro - Guilt For Patronizing Him, Degrading Him, Brutalizing Him, Depersonalizing Him, Thingifying Him; Guilt For Lying To Itself. This Is The Source Of The Schizophrenia That The South Will Suffer Until It Goes Through Its Crisis Of Conscience.

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

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. Far From Being The Pious Injunction Of A Utopian Dreamer, Love Is An Absolute Necessity For The Survival Of Our Civilization. To Return Hate For Hate Does Nothing But Intensify The Existence Of Evil In The Universe. Someone Must Have Sense Enough And Religion Enough To Cut Off The Chain Of Hate And Evil, And This Can Only Be Done Through Love.

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

Truth Is Found Neither In Marxism Nor In Traditional Capitalism. Each Represents A Partial Truth. Historically Capitalism Failed To See The Truth In Collective Enterprise, And Marxism Failed To See The Truth In Individual Enterprise. Nineteenth Century Capitalism Failed To See That Life Is Social And Marxism Failed And Still Fails To See That Life Is Individual And Personal. The Kingdom Of God Is Neither The Thesis Of Individual Enterprise Nor The Antithesis Of Collective Enterprise, But A Synthesis Which Reconciles The Truths Of Both.

Life's Most Persistent And Urgent Question Is: What Are You Doing For Others? Living Is A Form Of Not Being Sure, Not Knowing What Next Or How. The Moment You Know How, You Begin To Die A Little.

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

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

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.

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.

No Work Is Insignificant. All Labor That Uplifts Humanity Has Dignity

Dignity Of Work

Rioting Is Not Revolutionary.

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

Mind Your Own Business

My Friends, All I'm Trying To Say Is That If We Are To Go Forward Today, We've Got To Go Back And Rediscover Some Mighty Precious Values That We've Left Behind. That's The Only Way That We Would Be Able To Make Of Our World A Better World, And To Make Of This World What God Wants It To Be And The Real Purpose And Meaning Of It.

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.

We Are Called To Speak For The Weak, For The Voiceless, For The Victims Of Our Nation And For Those It Calls Enemy, For No Document From Human Hands Can Make These Humans Any Less Our Brothers And Sisters.

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

Education Without Direction Is A One-sided Social Value. Direct Action Without Education Is A Meaningless Expression Of Pure Energy.

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

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

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

It Was Argued That The Negro Was Inferior By Nature Because Of Noah's Curse Upon The Children Of Ham.... The Greatest Blasphemy Of The Whole Ugly Process Was That The White Man Ended Up Making God His Partner In The Exploitation Of The Negro.

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

We Refuse To Believe That The Bank Of Justice Is Bankrupt.

I Have A Dream Speech

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

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

Power Is Love Implementing The Demands Of Justice. Justice Is Love Correcting Everything That Goes Against Love.

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

We Aren't Going To Let Any Mace Stop Us. We Are Masters In Our Nonviolent Movement In Disarming Police Forces; They Don't Know What To Do.

If You Can’t Run, Walk; If You Can’t Walk, Crawl, But Keep Moving Forward!

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.

Whatever Affects One Directly Affects All Indirectly.

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.

Just As It Is The Duty Of All Men To Obey Just Laws, So It Is The Duty Of All Men To Disobey Unjust Laws.

I Have A Dream, One Dream, Keep Dreaming. Dream Of Freedom, Justice Dreaming, Dreaming Of Equality And Hopefully No Longer Required To Dream Them

Wisdom Born Of Experience Should Tell Us That War Is Obsolete. There May Have Been A Time When War Served As A Negative Good By Preventing The Spread And Growth Of An Evil Force If We Assume That Life Is Worth Living, If We Assume That Mankind Has The Right To Survive, Then We Must Find An Alternative To War.

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

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

Courage Is The Power Of The Mind To Overcome Fear.

Justice Too Long Delayed Is Justice Denied.

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.

Music Is The Best Consolation For A Despaired Man

A Piece Of Freedom Is No Longer Enough For Human Beings...unlike Bread, A Slice Of Liberty Does Not Finish Hunger. Freedom Is Like Life. It Cannot Be Had In Installments. Freedom Is Indivisible--we Have It All, Or We Are Not Free.

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

I Said To My Children, 'i'm Going To Work And Do Everything That I Can Do To See That You Get A Good Education. I Don't Ever Want You To Forget That There Are Millions Of God's Children Who Will Not And Cannot Get A Good Education, And I Don't Want You Feeling That You Are Better Than They Are. For You Will Never Be What You Ought To Be Until They Are What They Ought To Be.

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

For You Will Never Be What You Ought To Be Until They [your Fellow Humans] Are What They Ought To Be.

Most Of These People Will Never Make The Headlines And Their Names Will Not Appear In Who's Who. Yet When Years Have Rolled Past And When The Blazing Light Of Truth Is Focused On This Marvelous Age In Which We Live - Men And Women Will Know And Children Will Be Taught That We Have A Finer Land, A Better People, A More Noble Civilization - Because These Humble Children Of God Were Willing To Suffer For Righteousness' Sake.

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